http://www.weather.co.zw/index.cfm

“Meteorological Services in Zimbabwe were initially established as an Office under the Ministry of Agriculture through a Parliamentary decree in 1925. Earlier on, from 1897 to 1920, the collection of meteorological statistics was a part-time duty the “Statistic” and later “Agricultural Engineer”. The original concept was the establishment of about a dozen climatological stations equipped to record pressure, temperature, humidity and rainfall. The duty of observation was to fall to Civil Commissioners. The first stations to be established were at the then Salisbury (Harare), Bulawayo, Gwelo (Gweru), Fort Victoria (Masvingo), Tuli, Belingwe (Mberengwa), Umtali (Mutare), Hope Fountain, Rusape and Inyanga (Nyanga). In Bulawayo the instruments were issued to St George’s School and later transferred to the Lawley Road site in 1903 with the arrival of Father Goetz. At about the same time, a policy was adopted of supplying rain gauges to Police and other outposts thereby increasing the number in use considerably.

Daily rainfall reports, synoptic charts and experimental weather forecasts started in 1922. Regular weather forecasts for the country started in 1924 through the press and by telegraph to all Post Offices. Scheduled aviation services commenced in January 1932 resulting in the opening of new Meteorological Offices at or near aerodromes at Bulawayo and Salisbury (Harare) in July 1936. At this stage, most of the 30-odd synoptic stations were at Police Stations issuing one to three reports per day. Following the commissioning of Lake Kariba in the late 1950s, a network of Seismic monitoring stations was established in Bulawayo, Karoi, Mt Darwin and Chiredzi.

Currently the Zimbabwe Meteorological Services has a network of about 64 full time and part-time meteorological observing stations around the country and more than one thousand volunteer rainfall-observing sites.

On 10 September 2003, the Meteorological Services Bill passed through parliament and got the Presidential Assent in the same month. The Meteorological Services Act (chapter 13:21) established the Meteorological Services Department, which had always existed under the Ministry of Transport and Communications before the Act as a Statutory Body with a legal framework to provide certain products and services on a Cost Recovery Basis and Free or Tax-payer funded Services.”

I recall the Mutare station was sited at the fire station and had a couple of Stevenson screens although I can’t vouch for it’s current state! There would be very little UHI effect due to the lack of recent (20 years) development. ( lat=-18.9718258998, lon=32.6654821465).

When people ask me what I like about climate research, I tell them, “Everything: The psychology, the politics, the complexity of nature.” People intuitively understand that the complexity extends into the stakeholder dimension. Interesting comment Philip_B.

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Re: Erl Happ (19:58:09)
The authorities in my region had to backtrack after they predicted TMin was going to overtake TMax — D’Oh! I asked around about the analyst; one reply came back, “Yeah, she’s not too bright.”

T Mean tells us very little about the thermal dynamics that drive biological systems. Consider plant growth, e.g. the grape vine. Temperatures below 10°C in the presence of light can bring about photo-inhibition whereby the leaves will not photosynthesise even when temperatures become more favourable. Carbohydrate generation is slight at temperatures below 15°C, peaks at about 25°C and is gradually inhibited as temperatures rise above 30°C.

The Rolls Royce situation for data analaysis is spot readings every 20 minutes. A passable job can be done in predicting plant performance with hourly data.

T Mean calculated as (TMax +T Min)/2 can be two to three degrees either side of a true average of 24 hourly readings. I suspect that in twenty years or less, peer reviewers will be throwing out papers that rely on T Mean on the basis that this statistic provides no indication of the thermal conditions driving biological systems.

Christy’s paper points us in the right direction.

Allen M. Check out the indicators from Australia on the Mar-May temp anomaly graph from NOAA. Go to Rimfrost , “raw data” and look at Perth, Alice Springs and Melbourne. The “raw data” looks more normal then high.

I suspect they know what the problem is, but can’t come out and say it, because it is a rather large nail in the coffin of AGW.

Increasing Tmin isn’t caused by warmer nights. It is caused by increased early morning sunlight. Thus reducing the period after dawn when radiative cooling exceeds warming from the sun.

The cause may be reduced aerosols, reduced low level cloud or some other cause. But it can’t possibly be GHGs.

* There may be a UHI signal affecting Tmin as well.

The Indian monsoon is late this year. This monsoon is caused by a summer heat low in central Asia. The monsoon typically reaches central Asia around this time of year.

So rather paradoxically, unusually high temperatures in central Asia are due to a lack of monsoon clouds and rain, which in turn are due to an unusually cool summer to date.

An interesting thing to examine in relation to East Africa is subtle changes in the Southern Oscillation over the last 40-60 years that may have affected humidity there. Obviously land changes also would have a more direct impact upon humidity in East Africa. Mt Kilomanjaro has seen its high level glaciers recede not because of AGW, but because of less precipitation in the higher altitudes. Could changes in farming in East Africa have lowered the abolute humidity there, and thus lead to lower nighttime lows?

As a keen wildfowler with ageing bones, out on the merse (marshes) of the Moray Firth (Scotland) in the depths of winter and well before the dawn, I can verify that the coldest time is very often about half an hour after first light, and that on dawns when no frost is present, frost will often
form on the ground at that time.

If only more people would be interested in doing this research.

MikeN (08:52:52) : If this WERE true, then you would tend to still see significant warming in Tmax, which is connected better to the upper air. And of course there is a great danger of mixing up the signals.

What helps here is that models tells us the expected change in the diurnal temperature range from CO2 AGW-it turns out to be much LESS change than actually observed:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/ipcc-vs-observed-diurnal-temperature.png

Seems like a landuse signal to me!

BTW and geniuses out there able to explain what the difference between Tavg and Tmean is? I’m confused by that…