wxteam4's Blog

No weather to speak of for a few days so we'll take a day to day weather break for today's blog ..latest forecast details on the news @ 9/10 tonight...meanwhile Chris has been hard at work going back through his Research Project #2 with some new information...so without further ado...Chris takes over from here...

This is a follow-up project on one we did earlier this summer. Remember the project where we looked at the first 90 degree day of the year, the first 100 degree day of the year, and the total number of 90 degree plus days each year, from 1950 to 1999? Well one of our readers suggested that we look at the number of 100 degree plus days and the number of 105 degree plus days so that we could get a good look at the extremes. In addition to doing this, I also added the years 2000 to 2007 to the data….so that changes a few things, nothing much, but enough to talk about.

            First, let’s talk about the number of 100°+ and 105°+ days. For the most part, one could expect fewer than 10 days out of the year to have a high above 100 degrees. In the 58 year period, 22 of those years did not even reach 100°. For those 36 years that did, the average number of days per year in the 100° zone was 7 with a standard deviation of 6. That means that years with more than 13 days of highs 100°+ are statistically significant. Six appeared in the set: 1953, 1954, 1970, 1980, 1983, and 1988. If you remember from last time, 1953 and 1954 were in the hot streak during the early 1950s, 1970 had an early first 90° day on April 27th, 1980 had both an early 90°+ and 100°+ day, and 1988 also had an early 100°+ day on June 20th. The maximum number of 100°+ days was 30 in…you guessed it….1954. So we’re seeing some connection between early heat waves and total number of 100°+ days. Now let’s look at the next step…105°+ days. While 36 of the 58 years we looked at had highs above 100°, only 8 years had highs above 105°, and most of those are the same years with a significant number of 100°+ days. Here they are: 1954*, 1970*, 1974, 1980*, 1983*, 1984, 1988*, 2000, and 2003. No surprise that 1954 led the way with an astounding 8 days of the year with highs above 105° with 1980 following with 5 days. The remaining years only had a day or two above 105°.

            Here are just a few tid-bits about our hottest year of the set: 1954.  In 1954, we had a pretty average first 90° day on June 9th; a little early, but nothing to write home about. But…a little more than two weeks later, we hit our first 100° day on June 25th. 1954 was also our maximum 90°+ days (tied with 1953), 100°+ days, and 105°+ days. July 13th, 1954 is the second hottest day on record with a high of 112°. And 1954 holds 9 records for daily highs in the month of July.

            Alright, and to tie up a few loose ends regarding the addition of 8 years to the previous project. The average number of 90°+ days per year did not change, but the standard deviation did. A.k.a…..there are a few more years that are now statistically significant. We tacked on an additional year where the first 90° day happened in April (2006), as well as another year with a first 90° day in July (2004). 2004 also got close to the record minimum number of 90°+ days per year for our data period. The record is 8 which happened in 1992….2004 had 10 days with 90°+ highs. 2006 also had statistically significant number of 90°+ days, as did 2002, both of which were in the high 50s. But there has not been any year since the turn of the century with early or late 100° days, they have all been pretty normal…occurring in July or August. Though two years, 2004 and 2005, did not even reach 100° at all. Also, nothing statistically significant about the number of 100°+ days or the number of 105°+ days thus far this century.