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Observations Climate Stats/Extremes/Normals

LickWx

LickWx

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This is a thread dedicated to as the title said all things climate !

I’ll start us off with average hours spent at certain heat index temps 1973-2020 at RDU.

network:NC_ASOS::zstation:RDU::syear:1973::eyear:2020::year:2020::var:heatindex::ytd:no::inc:no::dpi:100.png
 
Up to 2010 for data, if the map was up to 2019 think places like the coast of NC would have return periods that are much shorter given we have seen a landfalling hurricane pretty much every year it seems like. Not a surprising map, although a bit surprised that the northern coast of NC has a short return period.


return_hurr.jpg
 
Cad Wedge NC said:
Or a lot of new construction with asphalt and concrete.
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I didn’t know there was a rush to relocate to Phoenix and move businesses to there. Of course I don’t follow trends on the economy just on climate trends.


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CADEffect said:
I didn’t know there was a rush to relocate to Phoenix and move businesses to there. Of course I don’t follow trends on the economy just on climate trends.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Arizona and Phoenix especially are booming. They build very sprawling developments out there, their urban heat island effect is intense.
 
Lickwx said:
Arizona and Phoenix especially are booming. They build very sprawling developments out there, their urban heat island effect is intense.
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Check surrounding cities like Yuma, Tuscon, Prescott, etc, and see if there is a similar pattern.. then the likelihood of UHI effect being a significant cause is less likely. Most of the 10 warmest years in Yuma for instance are in the past 20 years.
 
SETNwx said:
Check surrounding cities like Yuma, Tuscon, Prescott, etc, and see if there is a similar pattern.. then the likelihood of UHI effect being a significant cause is less likely. Most of the 10 warmest years in Yuma for instance are in the past 20 years.
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Plus UHIs are most prominent for increased low temperatures, high temperatures aren’t affected as significantly.
 
Links to access 91-20 Climo Data

NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals Quick Access

Web site created using create-react-app
www.ncei.noaa.gov www.ncei.noaa.gov

Link for full access and Pdf/csv downloads

U.S. Climate Normals

The U.S. Climate Normals are a large suite of data products that provide information about typical climate conditions for thousands of locations across the United States. Normals act both as a ruler to compare today’s weather and tomorrow’s forecast, and as a predictor of conditions in the near...
www.ncei.noaa.gov www.ncei.noaa.gov

Nowdata has the averages in as well
 
Some 91-20 data in pretty wiki box form. Thew dewpoint data for rdu and clt is old and outdated as ----, add 2 degrees to each month to get an idea of the actual modern avg dews are. Those are from 61-90 in the box. Weird... mean rdu april minimum is above freezing now... it was 30 81-10. hmmmm i thought we were getting colder later and later !

y2mSaEY.png


Snow data is 81-10 hatteras since it seems 91-20 they dont got none which makes me mad. why dont we got snow data! In all likelihood it dropped a solid inch since dec 1989 is out of the data and that skewed it massively
kqmVXil.png



1620240617513.png


1620240656644.png



1620240691945.png



1620240745434.png
 
I’m a bit puzzled by how Southport has a diurnal temperature variation of nearly 25 degrees in January, higher than inland spots like RDU, CLT, etc. Southport is right on the coast, so I would’ve thought they’d have relatively little diurnal variation. Only thing I can think of is that it’s a rural area.

Also, Hatteras will likely see a modest drop in their snowfall average with 1989 falling out of the dataset, but they also got a good 6-7” storm in January 2011 and I think they got a few other snowfalls last decade, so I’m not sure it’ll be cataclysmic.
 
superjames1992 said:
I’m a bit puzzled by how Southport has a diurnal temperature variation of nearly 25 degrees in January, higher than inland spots like RDU, CLT, etc. Southport is right on the coast, so I would’ve thought they’d have relatively little diurnal variation.

Also, Hatteras will likely see a modest drop in their snowfall average with 1989 falling out of the dataset, but they also got a good 6-7” storm in January 2011 and I think they got a few other snowfalls last decade, so I’m not sure it’ll be cataclysmic.
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Decembers snowfall will def drop pretty dramtically, I have no clue about southport tbh lol! Its one of those station things i guess, theres a station near the airport that avgs 53/34 in jan for raleigh.
 
Also, the difference between Roxboro and RDU for low temperatures is kind of shocking (and high temperatures are basically identical). We’re talking about 6 degrees difference throughout winter! Maybe it’s always been that way. I guess Roxboro doesn’t get much UHI.
 
superjames1992 said:
Also, the difference between Roxboro and RDU for low temperatures is kind of shocking (and high temperatures are basically identical). We’re talking about 6 degrees difference throughout winter! Maybe it’s always been that way. I guess Roxboro doesn’t get much UHI.
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I dont know that its UHI alone, I think Roxboro could be a bit of a frost hollow contributing to the larger than expected diurnals. A typical winter diurnal in the piedmont, non uhi, non frost hollowish seems to be 21-22 degree range where as roxboro is 24-25.
 
Lickwx said:
I dont know that its UHI alone, I think Roxboro could be a bit of a frost hollow contributing to the larger than expected diurnals. A typical winter diurnal in the piedmont, non uhi, non frost hollowish seems to be 21-22 degree range where as roxboro is 24-25.
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Also, the differences they are showing for Durham vs. RDU are surprising to me. 51.9/31.8 for RDU in January compared to 48.9/27.9 for Durham. 63.3/40.3 vs. 60.7/37.2 for March. RDU and Durham aren’t 15 miles apart... And Durham is coming in colder than Greensboro.
 
RDU and CLT both seem to have pretty healthy large diurnals, I dont think UHI is yet as big of an issue for those stations. Take a look at Atlanta or DC if you want to see what some serious UHI does to diurnals lol! I think Atlantas diurnal range is like 18 degrees at the major airport. Pretty low for an inland us southern city. RDU and CLT still have a solid 20 degree diurnal.
 
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superjames1992 said:
Also, the differences they are showing for Durham vs. RDU are surprising to me. 51.9/31.8 for RDU in January compared to 48.9/27.9 for Durham. 63.3/40.3 vs. 60.7/37.2 for March. RDU and Durham aren’t 15 miles apart... And Durham is coming in colder than Greensboro.
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I think thats because the station is messed up and it stopped reporting in the 90s, but they still gave it normals lol. Its crap, some of these stations are total crap. Check out falls lake for example lol!
 
Lickwx said:
I think thats because the station is messed up and it stopped reporting in the 90s, but they still gave it normals lol. Its crap, some of these stations are total crap. Check out falls lake for example lol!
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That would certainly explain it. I’d expect Durham to be a bit cooler than RDU, but not by much.

Kind of depressing RDU averages a 40F low in March now.
 
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