Supposedly Mark Twain once asserted: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” This July was cold, and Twain’s quote? Well, read on.
My friend Jan Null, former lead forecaster for the NWS in California, is now runs a private forecasting and forensic weather services business. He sends out regular emails with note of interest. Here is one of them:
With an average monthly maximum July temperature of just 63.1 degrees, San Francisco had its coolest July since 1971 and the 13th coolest in the past 97 years. Only one day reached the 70 degree mark (72 degrees on 7/3 and no day after the 17th exceeded 64 degrees.
Downtown San Francisco, CA
Average July monthly maximum temperatures
(See table below)
| Rank | Year | Avg. Max (°F) |
| 1 | 1962 | 60.52 |
| 2 | 1951 | 61.13 |
| 3 | 1944 | 61.55 |
| 4 | 1956 | 61.90 |
| 5 | 1965 | 61.94 |
| 6 | 1914 | 62.06 |
| 7 | 1955 | 62.52 |
| 8 | 1971 | 62.68 |
| 9 | 1919 | 62.90 |
| 10 | 1949 | 63.00 |
| 11 | 1968 | 63.00 |
| 12 | 1950 | 63.03 |
| 13 | 2010 | 63.10 |
| 14 | 1970 | 63.13 |
| 15 | 1969 | 63.29 |
| 16 | 1938 | 63.32 |
| 17 | 1982 | 63.32 |
| 18 | 1960 | 63.39 |
| 19 | 1958 | 63.55 |
| 20 | 1981 | 63.71 |
| 21 | 1966 | 63.81 |
| 22 | 2000 | 63.84 |
| 23 | 1953 | 63.87 |
| 24 | 1943 | 63.90 |
| 25 | 1952 | 63.94 |
| 26 | 1967 | 63.94 |
| 27 | 1978 | 64.06 |
| 28 | 1920 | 64.10 |
| 29 | 1945 | 64.13 |
| 30 | 1976 | 64.23 |
| 31 | 1973 | 64.32 |
| 32 | 1937 | 64.39 |
| 33 | 1928 | 64.42 |
| 34 | 1939 | 64.42 |
| 35 | 1975 | 64.52 |
| 36 | 1999 | 64.55 |
| 37 | 1964 | 64.61 |
| 38 | 1942 | 64.68 |
| 39 | 1924 | 64.71 |
| 40 | 1927 | 64.77 |
| 41 | 1948 | 64.87 |
| 42 | 1980 | 64.87 |
| 43 | 1941 | 64.94 |
| 44 | 1977 | 64.94 |
| 45 | 1930 | 65.06 |
Jan Null
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Webpage: http://ggweather.com
===================================
About the Twain quote: Snopes.com reports that he never said it.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
another nail in the coffin of the ASFW alarmists!!
Wasn’t 1971 cooler (62.68) than 1970 (63.13), which would require another caption for the entire entry?
REPLY: yes a typo in the title, fixed. Thanks Anthony
I doubt any of us will still be alive the next time there is a “hottest year on record”.
Now let’s rank the values you posted by year (I would love to have the full dataset, but this is more than enough):
1914 62.06
1919 62.9
1920 64.1
1924 64.71
1927 64.77
1928 64.42
1930 65.06
1937 64.39
1938 63.32
1939 64.42
1941 64.94
1942 64.68
1943 63.9
1944 61.55
1945 64.13
1948 64.87
1949 63
1950 63.03
1951 61.13
1952 63.94
1953 63.87
1955 62.52
1956 61.9
1958 63.55
1960 63.39
1962 60.52
1964 64.61
1965 61.94
1966 63.81
1967 63.94
1968 63
1969 63.29
1970 63.13
1971 62.68
1973 64.32
1975 64.52
1976 64.23
1977 64.94
1978 64.06
1980 64.87
1981 63.71
1982 63.32
1999 64.55
2000 63.84
2010 63.1
So out of the 45 coldest years (which is probably 1/3 of the dataset) only 5 (1/9th of them) are in the last 30 years….
The Washington Post just proclaimed the hottest DC summer evah. Or maybe the 2nd hottest.
Question: how much different was the temperature when the heavy smogs of the ’70s prevailed, to the cleaner, less smoggy days today?
Yet again, the alarmist MSN in Australia reports mostly events like heatwaves in Russia, forest fires in Southern California and floods in Pakistan, they don’t mention it, but you can feel it, the pro-AGW slant. But cold, is just weather, right? Well, maybe not, yesterday there was one 30 second report of an “antarctic blast” dumping quite a bit of snow in the Blue and Snowy mountain areas. Bumper snow season in Australia and New Zealand this winter.
The election is on Ausgust 21st (And as it turns out, I don’t qualify to vote! Well if I had sorted out my citizenship before Ms Gillard pushed KRudd747 aside via a sturdy knife in the back and pulled an early election, I might have. Oh well! 3 more years! 3 more years!) and if Labor form a coalition with the Greens, very probable, we can say good bye to the lucky country. All manner of “planet saving” legislation is just waiting in the wings. Incidentally, almost 1.5 million new voters registered to vote this year. Will be an interesting election.
From the link to Snopes.com: It may be California, and it may be lovely, but the wind can be vicious, and those summertime temperatures can be disappointing bordering on “in danger of freezing if one doesn’t keep moving.”
The alarmists will shortly need to be moving from a canter into a gallop…
With PDO (-) and La Nina forming it could be a cold winter in San Francisco too.
I allus told you we libruls were cool.
Interesting factoid, but let’s face it.
When the 45th least-cold July in nearly 100 years only musters 65F, “Baghdad By the Bay” ain’t exactly cozy. Time to retreat to the Redwood Room at the Clift Hotel for a proper martini!
Makes me miss Herb Caen.
Anthony, trivial but Jan overlooked 1971 (#8) as “coolest July since”.
REPLY: No that’s an error on my part in copy paste, and writing the title, Fixed thanks. -A
As far as I can tell it was absurdly cold and gloomy in San Diego in July too. Fricking Brrrrr!
My read of the above table is that it’s the coolest since 1971, position 8 on the list, since 1970 was a bit warmer than 2010. When one says “coolest since…” it refers to time when it was colder. But you, Anthony, have shown a year that was a bit warmer than 2010.
REPLY: Typo in highlight, thanks for pointing it out. I shouldn’t edit when I’m tired. -A
“Sans summer Fransisco”?
I’m NOT holding my breath waiting on the MSM or the Weather Channel to report this, blue is just not my color.
Anthony,
you should give the unit (°F) for Avg. Max column.
REPLY: in the USA, it is assumed, and if those were C, people would be screaming about a heat wave -Anthony
But — but — but — it was the 28th *warmest* July evah!
*koff*
The post above is one reason I like to see the actual temperatures, rather than a graph of anomalies. When the difference between the warmest and the coolest is less than four and a half degrees, it puts some perspective back into the discussion.
I was alive 34 of those 45 years and I didn’t notice because cold and foggy is normal. I did notice the unusual warming period that ended about three years ago. For me, normal is cold and foggy between the spring and fall heat waves.
Nice bit of cherry picking.
REPLY: Noting records or events in context of records is not cherry picking, they are singular points. Either they exceed +/- previous records or they don’t. For example:
But you can be certain that if it was the warmest July SFO maxima since 1971 it would be screamed about it headlines.
– Anthony
San Diego had it’s coolest July since 1933! It ranked 14th all-time for coolest July, which is impressive considering the changes in locations and the urban growth that downtown San Diego has experienced in the last 77 years.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jul/31/grsq-san-diegos-coldest-july-99-years-about-end/?sciquest
There were only 8 days with a high temp of 70 or above, compared to 9 in January!
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/monthdisp.php?stn=KSAN&year=2010&mon=7&wfo=sgx&p=temperature
I wonder how much money this cool weather has saved people on their electric bills? While the immediate coastal areas benefitted the most, inland areas have also been running at least 10 degrees below normal too – and that’s a good thing for them.
Well Anthony, you are the hero who blogs in his spare time even when he is tired. I have my own blog but when I’m tired I just say: “I’ll leave it till tomorrow” and two to three weeks later it gets done!
Second, I notice that we skeptics air our dirty laundry in public — if we make a mistake it is out in the open and so is the retraction. Unlike AGW. Kudos…
It’s officially the warmest year on record isn’t it? What was that? The needle’s stuck you say? Better give the turntable a nudge to make the needle jump the right way…
I work in a building on the old naval air station in Alameda. Our shop Is on the lagoon with windows facing the city. The summer fog has been very persistent, burning off back to the coast by 10:00 to 11:00, rolling back in by 4 or so (ruining all the sunsets) I was over there on top of the hills a couple of times last month, streets wet, trees dripping with water, very windy. Makes for excellent sailing in the afternoons!
Anthony,
I’m not cruel, but every physical value requires its unit. I’m living in Germany and the people would be there screaming about a new heat wave…in the USA 😉