NOAA: US Cold records outnumber warm records 66 to 1 in the last 7 days

And nearly 3 to 1 in the last 30 days, and over 2 to 1 in 2014

From NOAA/NCDC:  U.S. Records Summary

The summaries below list the number of records broken for several recent periods is summarized in this table and updated daily. Due to late-arriving data, the number of recent records is likely underrepresented in all categories, but the ratio of records (warm to cold, for example) should be a fairly strong estimate of a final outcome. There are many more precipitation stations than temperature stations, so the raw number of precipitation records will likely exceed the number of temperature records in most climatic situations.

See the table:

US-hi-lo-records

Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/records

Unfortunately, it seems NOAA’s map visualization of the record is broken.

The tab “View Selected Records” fails to produce any data, no matter what the setting. I’ve sent a note out tot he NCDC webmaster.

 

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March 8, 2014 8:01 am

Climate/Earth worship needs to die a quick death.

Mark T
March 8, 2014 8:03 am

Clearly this is more evidence of global warming, er, well, maybe dumbing.
Mark

RichardLH
March 8, 2014 8:10 am

I have no doubt we are over a local maximum and headed downwards for the next few year so this sort of thing may well repeat again next year. If we actually reach or even exceed these records again next year will be interesting.
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/uah-global.png

March 8, 2014 8:17 am

Ah but climate “scientists” have always known that CAGW causes extreme weather events, hot and cold, wet and dry etc etc. The perfect climate we used to have never had extreme weather.

pokerguy
March 8, 2014 8:20 am

I hate cold weather and despise snow, but we really need a trend breaker….that is globally….to begin to put this thing to bed once and for all. 5 years of significant global cooling might do it…
It’s fun to talk about local cold and tease the easily teas-able warmists with reminders about how snow is supposed to be a rare and exciting event by now…but it’s not going to get us anywhere in a substantive way….

March 8, 2014 8:25 am

The Low Max (record coolest daily high) numbers also deserve notice.
This ought to be a regular, monthly post.

ferdberple
March 8, 2014 8:28 am

Warming is caused by climate. Cooling is caused by weather.

March 8, 2014 8:41 am

330 Snow FALL Daily Records in the last 7 days.
14109 Snow FALL Daily Records in the last 365 days.
for each, there are zero Snow DEPTH daily records. — in March.
That is very surprising. I am trying to figure out how it would be possible.
I suspect a query error.
Aside: Breckenridge snow report:
14 inches of snow in the past 24 hours, 24 inches of snow in past 7 days,
and 353 inches in the season.
301 inches is the season average and March is usually the heaviest snowfall month.

Robert Wykoff
March 8, 2014 8:53 am

And March will still have a positive anomaly.

Ray Hudson
March 8, 2014 9:00 am

I have always maintained that the relationship between “climate” and “weather” is something on the order of:
Climate = INTEGRAL(Weather*dtime)
If this rough relationship is true, then how long before these WEATHER trends being to reflect an honest to goodness change in CLIMATE towards a distinct down-trend in global temperature anomaly?

Alan Robertson
March 8, 2014 9:00 am

Snow has nitrogen content and is sometimes called the poor man’s fertilizer. Last year’s local gardens were delayed by late frosts which persisted over 2 weeks longer than normal. [Let] it snow, but not much longer.

Alan Robertson
March 8, 2014 9:01 am

pimf Let it snow…

March 8, 2014 9:15 am

No, no, no! It is nearly 9,000 to 1 in favor of warm records!! You forgot the records being set at the bottom of the ocean. We can not measure them but our climate models say it is hot as hell down there. Little Mike told me so!

Steve Keohane
March 8, 2014 9:21 am

Stephen Rasey says:March 8, 2014 at 8:41 am
This may or may not be of interest. There is a volunteer network across the US that collects and records precipitation data, including in some cases, total snow depth and Snow Water Equivalent (SWE), the water content of the snow on the ground.
http://www.cocorahs.org/
If you click on view data they have some ways of viewing the data, no apparent way to download it though. They had over 5500 observations reported by noon EST for today.

Catcracking
March 8, 2014 9:42 am

The visualization map cannot be fixed because NASA spent all the government money giving discounted fuel to Google’s owners for their private aircraft.
See how your tax dollars go to big contributors
Wonder why Google contributes to political campaigns?
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/NASA-Admits-to-Selling-Discount-Fuel-to-Google-Execs-248922181.html
“NASA now acknowledges what NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Team first uncovered last year–that the government agency has been effectively giving a price break on jet fuel to a private company.
In a letter to an Iowa senator (PDF), NASA’s associate administrator for legislative and intergovernmental affairs admits the agency was selling jet fuel at below market rates to H2-11, a company owned by the founders of Google.
Senator Chuck Grassley says he received the letter on Thursday although it’s dated Feb. 24. In the letter, NASA’s Seth Statler writes, “in light of the concerns expressed with those agreements, NASA has reviewed its pricing approach and…is now charging a ‘market rate’ for aviation fuel at Ames research center.”
Last September, NBC Bay Area examined seven years of fuel records from 2007 through 2013. According to those records, NASA sold to H2-11 discounted jet fuel that was then used to fly a private 757, a 767 and 5 other luxury aircraft all over the world. H2-11’s principle owners are the same as Google’s: Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.
According to the fuel records, H2-11 purchased jet fuel for prices ranging from $2.37 to $3.20 a gallon. At nearby local airports, the exact same jet fuel goes for between $5 and $8.50 per gallon.
According to the inspector general’s report, the discount fuel saved Google’s principals between $3.3 million and $5.3 million since H2-11 was able to purchase the taxpayer subsidized fuel at Ames.
Senator Grassley has been a vocal critic on Capitol Hill of this arrangement between NASA and H2-11. He says, “It’s good news that NASA finally heeded my calls and scrutiny from the media and acknowledged its fuel pricing was wrong. Like all agencies, NASA is responsible for getting the most bang for the taxpayer’s buck.”
An official with H2-11 has always maintained that they were buying the only fuel available to them at NASA Ames. H2-11’s executive director Ken Ambrose says that the company did nothing wrong and that it has paid “full retail for hangar space” at Moffett Field.
Senator Grassley still wants NASA to get back those millions that taxpayers subsidized for the lower cost fuel, but NASA says it’s not possible. In the letter, Statler says “NASA does not have an avenue to pursue payments in excess of its full cost to provide the fuel under the earlier agreements with H2-11, as suggested by the inspector general.”

Village Idiot
March 8, 2014 9:51 am

Weather weirding from the drunk Arctic continues. Record warmth and ice maximum minimums must have some consequences:
http://www.dmi.dk/groenland/arktis/middeltemperaturer/
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png

john robertson
March 8, 2014 10:00 am

These record lows are easily rectifies, using patented Team IPCC ™ methodology, simply adjust the past temperatures lower.
See no more cold, more unprecedented warming.
And all our grandparents were lying, there was no way they grew those cereal crops they lived on.

john robertson
March 8, 2014 10:02 am

reticified

March 8, 2014 10:11 am

The man-made climate changers argument boils down to;
Insane insulting illogical psychobabble baseless opinion.

aeroguy48
March 8, 2014 10:33 am

Global warming, ‘affordable’ health care, NOAA’s website collapsing? Who would have thought that Socialism wasn’t the solution?

Editor
March 8, 2014 10:49 am

Steve Keohane says:
March 8, 2014 at 9:21 am

Stephen Rasey says:March 8, 2014 at 8:41 am
This may or may not be of interest. There is a volunteer network across the US that collects and records precipitation data, including in some cases, total snow depth and Snow Water Equivalent (SWE), the water content of the snow on the ground.
http://www.cocorahs.org/
If you click on view data they have some ways of viewing the data, no apparent way to download it though. They had over 5500 observations reported by noon EST for today.

I’m a CoCoRaHS member (station NH-MR-33), one that reliably tracks snow depth. I don’t know of ways to download data in bulk easily, but there are several organizations who probably do that through contact with the organizers.
It looks like I’ll wind up with the 3rd deepest snow pack in my (non-CoCoRaHS) 15 year record. I doubt there are any single day depth records this year, the season 2007/2008 will be very hard to top. (The blizzard of 1888 is also extremely hard to top in regional long term records.)
I don’t worry much about snowfall, snow depth, or “snow depth days” as a measure of climate change, the data is way too noisy to be useful unless you are looking at large regions or have a century’s worth of data.
See http://wermenh.com/sdd/ for more snow data from some places around New England. One day I might try picking up some CoCoRaHS data. One of the links I have there, http://www.uvm.edu/skivt-l/?Page=.%2Fmansel.php3&dir=. is an interactive snow graphics generator for Mt Mansfield VT with data back to 1954.

JimS
March 8, 2014 12:14 pm

I heard that it was Catastrophic Natural Global Cooling that gave Australia all its heats waves, drought and wild fires last summer. I learned early in life never to argue with logic.

March 8, 2014 12:23 pm

oops…time to smooth that data.

rogerknights
March 8, 2014 12:32 pm

pokerguy says:
March 8, 2014 at 8:20 am
I hate cold weather and despise snow, but we really need a trend breaker….that is globally….to begin to put this thing to bed once and for all. 5 years of significant global cooling might do it…

If 2014 is not one of the top-ten warmest years, that will put a spoke in their wheel that will kil their momentum–and maybe allow the silent majority to get off the stalled bandwagon.

chuck
March 8, 2014 12:50 pm

Keep in mind that when all the cold polar vortex air migrated down to the continental US, warm air had to migrate north to the Arctic. In a week or so, when the Arctic ice reaches it’s maximum, you’ll have to take note that it is well below 2-sigma from the average extent.

March 8, 2014 2:07 pm

@Ric Werme at 10:49 am
It looks like I’ll wind up with the 3rd deepest snow pack in my (non-CoCoRaHS) 15 year record.
“Wind up”… This implies you are referring to season total snow fall inches. Yes?
I doubt there are any single day depth records this year, the season 2007/2008 will be very hard to top. (The blizzard of 1888 is also extremely hard to top in regional long term records.)
I don’t worry much about snowfall, snow depth, or “snow depth days” as a measure of climate change, the data is way too noisy to be useful unless you are looking at large regions or have a century’s worth of data.

If the data is “way too noisy to be useful,” it must simultaneously be unlikely that none of thousands of stations on none of hundreds of days reports a new snow depth record, especially when there are 330 snow fall records in the seven days of the first week of March. 2007/2008 might have been a bad year…. but that didn’t stop March 1-7, 2014 from breaking at least 330 snowfall records from then or other years.
When faced with numbers coming out of a computer that look unlikely, one possible answer is there is a bug in the computer program.

March 8, 2014 2:30 pm

[Mods: 2:25 pm can be deleted as an unclosed link. Thank you.]
Paul Douglas on Weather, Star Tribune March 8.
RE: Minnesota:
Dr. Mark Seeley: “…Though not record-setting it is rare to have snow depths over 40 inches, yet several observers have reported these amounts for this winter including 47 inches near Two Harbors, 43 inches at Isabella, 42 inches at Wolf Ridge and Babbitt, 41 inches at Cook, and 40 inches at Cloquet and Grand Marais. The measurement of 47 inches neat Two Harbors is the deepest snow there since they measured 51 inches in March of 1965. Similarly at Babbitt the reading of 42 inches is the most there since a snow depth of 52 inches in February of 1969. The state record by the way is a snow depth of 75 inches at Pigeon River Bridge in March of 1950…”
I can easily accept in the frozen north the total snow depth might not be a record, if unusual.
Where it seems surprising to me is that places where the snow is usually gone by now, have had some unusually heavy snowfalls. It’s part of the noise. There is no snow for the last half of February, then say on March 6 there is bad storm. Is there really no place where the snow depth is the greatest on record on a particular day in March?

chuck
March 8, 2014 2:45 pm

The cold in the continental USA is impressive.
..
Anybody know how the other 97% of the globe is doing?

Jimbo
March 8, 2014 2:48 pm

We were told to expect warmer winters due to the greenhouse effect by none other than Dr. Gavin Schmidt and Shindell in the year 1999. Northern hemisphere winter snow extent has been trending up since 1967. Spring snow extent is down though. It still has to make you wonder whether these guys have sufficient skill to advise world leaders on the climate. They really are bloody useless. They couldn’t advise us on the damned weather, just take a look at the Met Office which made a forecast of a dryer than average winter for the UK! LOL.

Warm Winters Result From Greenhouse Effect, Columbia Scientists Find, Using NASA Model
Despite appearing as part of a natural climate oscillation, the large increases in wintertime surface temperatures over the continents may therefore be attributable in large part to human activities,”
Science Daily, Dr. Drew Shindell 4 June 1999
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990604081638.htm

Winter snow extent Northern Hemisphere
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=1

Richard Day
March 8, 2014 2:54 pm

And on April 1st, they will pronounce the winter of 2013-14 to be one of the warmest on record.

Jimbo
March 8, 2014 3:07 pm

DR. JAMES HANSEN 2008

10 February 2008
“This, Hansen wants to warn us, is a recipe for global warming disaster. The recent warm winters that Britain has experienced are a clear sign that the climate is changing, he says. ”
http://web.archive.org/web/20080511205221/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3341039.ece

Maybe Hansen does not know enough about the variable weather in the UK. It’s very changeable indeed. It’s not the climate, as Hansen claims, but the weather.
OBSERVATIONS by the Met Office.
UK winter 2009 / 2010
“Mean temperatures over the UK were 2.0 °C below the 1971-2000”
UK winter 2010 / 2011
“The UK mean temperature for the winter as a whole was 2.4 °C, making it less cold than winter 2009/10 which was 1.6 °C but still the second-coldest winter since 1985/86…”
UK winter 2011 / 2012
“Mean temperatures over the UK were 0.6 °C above average during December, 1.3 °C above in January and 0.7 °C above in February.”
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/uk-weather-reportwinter-201112/
UK winter 2012 / 2013
“The mean temperature over the UK for winter was 3.3 °C which is 0.4 °C below the long term average.”
UK winter 2013 / 2014
“Mean temperatures over the UK were well above the long-term average for all three months with a mean winter temperature of 5.2 oC which is 1.5 oC above the average and the fifth highest in the series. “

Dave B.
March 8, 2014 3:40 pm

The vast majority of the record cold temperatures in the U.S. are in smaller cities and rural sites. Due to the heat island affect it is more difficult in major metropolitan centers to break cold records (much easier to break warm temperature records). This makes the depth and breadth of the recent records all that much more impressive. Also, it has not just been in the U.S. Cold records have also fallen across much of Canada.

March 8, 2014 4:48 pm

Village Idiot says: (March 8, 2014 at 9:51 am) “Weather weirding from the drunk Arctic continues. Record warmth and ice maximum minimums must have some consequences: http://www.dmi.dk/groenland/arktis/middeltemperaturer/
Idiot, the warmth in the Arctic is a result of the jet reaching farther north around Alaska and Europe (before it dips south over N. America and central Asia). The warmth is an effect, not a cause, Idiot. One possible cause of the Alaska ridge is the warm anomaly in the north Pacific which is both feedback from and forcing from the ridge. Perhaps you would look into that warm pool some more and see if you can blame that on global warming to somewhat enhance your otherwise mindless harping.

Village Idiot
March 9, 2014 3:32 am

Sceptical Eric,
You’ve clearly misunderstood my comment. As I’m sure you wouldn’t do so deliberately, and couldn’t out of ignorance, I can only assume that English isn’t your first language.
You see, I said “… must have some consequences.” You replied “The warmth is an effect, not a cause, Idiot.
In English a synonym of consequence is ‘effect’ while an antonym is ’cause’.

Dr. John M. Ware
March 9, 2014 3:07 am

In my record of weather since last July, I have noted 6 apparent records (5 set, 1 tied), all cold records, including one for lowest maximum temperature. I say “apparent” because the temps I record are here in Mechanicsville at my house and at a local school, not at RIC, Richmond International Airport, the official site. The most recent was March 4, which had the all-time low record for March at 10 degrees. No record was set at the airport, which recorded 11 degrees; but out here in the boondocks of rural southeastern Mechanicsville we had 7 degrees, well below the record of 10. Obviously, Mechanicsville felt differences from airport readings long before I started keeping records, so I have no way to know what the actual record low here would be if accurate records had been kept. Nonetheless, I can safely say that the UHI effect is alive and well at the Richmond Airport but has dissipated substantially out here.

Editor
March 9, 2014 5:21 am

Stephen Rasey says:
March 8, 2014 at 2:07 pm
@Ric Werme at 10:49 am
Me>> It looks like I’ll wind up with the 3rd deepest snow pack in my (non-CoCoRaHS) 15 year record.
Stephen> “Wind up”… This implies you are referring to season total snow fall inches. Yes?
No, greatest daily snowpack, this season should be 30″ (on Feb 20). We’re down to 16.5″ this morning. It’s unlikely but possible for a couple big snow storms to get past 33″, the second place figure.
I should update my records table from http://wermenh.com/sdd/ne-0708.html
>> I doubt there are any single day depth records this year, the season 2007/2008 will be very hard to top. (The blizzard of 1888 is also extremely hard to top in regional long term records.)
Me>> I don’t worry much about snowfall, snow depth, or “snow depth days” as a measure of climate change, the data is way too noisy to be useful unless you are looking at large regions or have a century’s worth of data.
Stephen> If the data is “way too noisy to be useful,” it must simultaneously be unlikely that none of thousands of stations on none of hundreds of days reports a new snow depth record, especially when there are 330 snow fall records in the seven days of the first week of March. 2007/2008 might have been a bad year…. but that didn’t stop March 1-7, 2014 from breaking at least 330 snowfall records from then or other years.
Right, when I said “unless you are looking at large regions or have a century’s worth of data” I was saying my data is inadequate to show any trends. The whole of the national data (or a longer period where I live) can show trends. New extremes from individual storms (your “at least 330”) are just records and contribute to tends but don’t demonstrate them.
Stephen> When faced with numbers coming out of a computer that look unlikely, one possible answer is there is a bug in the computer program.
Certainly could be, I’m sure something is messed up. I wasn’t responding to that point. It’s also quite possible the database has space for but doesn’t track snow depth extremes. A lot of Co-op (I think) and CoCoRaHS reporters don’t track snow depth. Heck, I don’t have my snow depth data in my database except may for one year. I need to update that program and get that data in one of these years.
I was imprecise with “I doubt there are any single day depth records this year.” I meant to refer to my site. Over the country I agree there ought to be some record daily snowpacks.

March 9, 2014 5:52 am

Idiot, you said “Record warmth and ice maximum minimums must have some consequences” and showed graphs of the warmth and the ice. Since that was your first comment in a thread about record low temperatures in North America, one would assume that you were implying that the record low temperatures were such a consequence. So there are two possibilities, either your comment was off-topic blather or your comment was suggesting the record lows are a consequence of the Arctic warmth. If there is another interpretation please state it clearly.

Brian H
March 9, 2014 3:48 pm

Jimbo says:
March 8, 2014 at 3:07 pm

Maybe Hansen does not know enough about the variable weather in the UK. It’s very changeable indeed. It’s not the climate, as Hansen claims, but the weather.

What the words mean: the UK’s climate is: “changeable weather”.

Don
March 9, 2014 4:34 pm

Ric Werme and Stephen Rasey, I don’t know where NCDC and Weather Underground are getting their snow depth data from, but it sure ain’t from the reliable NRCS, where for example Northern Colorado’s Deadman Hill Snotel site reports 76 inches, a record for the period 1979 (start of monitoring) to present. Yesterday NCDC showed 3″ at the same site, today no report. Strange goings-on.
NRCS Deadman Hill Snotel report:
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/reportGenerator/view/customSingleStationReport/daily/438:co:SNTL/-7,0/WTEQ::value,SNWD::value,PREC::value,TOBS::value,TMAX::value,TMIN::value,TAVG::value
Weather Underground US snow depth map (animate it and watch deep snow melt overnight in Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, etc.):
http://www.wunderground.com/maps/us/Precip.html#?type=SnowDepth
NCDC map for Colorado snow depth here (select Current Snow Depth):
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/snow-and-ice/recent.php?period=c&region=05

March 10, 2014 4:20 am

chuck says: March 8, 2014 at 2:45 pm: The cold in the continental USA is impressive.
..
Anybody know how the other 97% of the globe is doing?
——–
yes, in Western Europe no winter at all, just the second warmest ever;
6,0 Celsius against 3,4 Celsius average;
http://www.knmi.nl/cms/viewimage.jsp?number=118275
so in Holland no possibility to skate…

observa
March 10, 2014 5:22 am

chuck says: March 8, 2014 at 2:45 pm
The cold in the continental USA is impressive.
Anybody know how the other 97% of the globe is doing?
Well here’s a sample chuck from my home town Adelaide in South Australia-
http://www.bom.gov.au/sa/forecasts/adelaide.shtml
in particular for a holiday Monday-
Location Min Max
Adelaide 22 29
Elizabeth 22 30
Glenelg 21 27
Noarlunga 21 27
Mount Barker 19 28
So you notice the variation in a sprawling city of over a million. Glenelg is west of the city on the shore of the Gulf and ditto Noarlunga but further south and no prizes for guessing what influence the sea does to the respective temps. Now inland about 12 kms Adelaide gets a bit warmer as does Mt Barker up in the Adelaide Hills(SE of the city) and Elizabeth on the plains to the NE and Mt Barker has the coldest minimum due no doubt to its elevation.
Notice the city (Adelaide CBD influenced) is a couple of degrees warmer than my suburb of Glenelg. How much has that difference changed over time you might ask? Well we wouldn’t have a clue because in the seventies the ‘Adelaide’ temp measure changed from the West Parklands to east of the city at the BOM at Kent Town east of the city and over that time the CBD has grown with more buildings and has largely become airconditioned.
If you were an honest meteorologist you’d openly admit you wouldn’t have a clue how ‘Adelaide’s’ temperature has changed in the last century or more but that doesn’t stop them kidding themselves, the media and anyone who will listen, that they do.
Nice weather we’re having after that summer heat wave a few weeks ago and at my age I’ve experienced plenty, just that there’s lots more crybabies and paid worryworts around these days, despite the airconditioning.

Box of Rocks
March 10, 2014 8:12 am

eric1skeptic says:
March 9, 2014 at 5:52 am
*******
Me thinks the Village Idiot is living up to his name.
Sure the arctic has been warmer due to a semi permanent high pressure ridge. The high pressure ridge bought a lot of air from the tropics (the fat santa cluas..). When this air sinks and returns to the earth’s surface – in this case/place Alaska, Siberia the air warms as it descends and compresses. Nothing man made about that!
What is then really impressive then is this recycled air cools rapidly and then is pushed southward (or pulled maybe – don’t quite understand the fluid dynamics of this….) a good old fashioned arctic outbreak happens and the Mardi Gras in NOLA sucks because of the cold.
Also VI does not seem to mention that if the arctic ocean has less ice than normal and no appreciable sunlight then the net energy flow will out of the arctic not into it and thus more cooler water will enter the global circulation system either through the Bearing Sea and down the west coast or down the west coast of Greenland (Really Leaf?) if I remember my circulation patterns correctly.
Nothing like a double whammy there.