FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: John Leslie 301-713-2087, ext. 174
Aug. 8, 2008
NOAA: U.S. Temperature Above Normal in July
July 2008 was the 30th warmest July for the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The average July temperature—74.9 degrees F—was 0.7 degrees above the 20th century mean, based on preliminary data.
U.S. Temperature Highlights
- July temperatures were generally higher than average across the West and Northeast and below average in the Midwest.
- Five states (Conn., Mass., N.J., R.I. and Utah) were much warmer than average. Rhode Island had its sixth warmest July, and Massachusetts and Utah both had their eighth warmest July, based on statewide data going back to 1895. Six states (Ill., Ind., Ky., Mo., N.M. and W.Va.) were cooler than average.
- Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was approximately three percent above average in July.
U.S. Precipitation Highlights
- An average of 2.90 inches of precipitation fell across the contiguous United States in July, which is near the 20th century average of 2.76 inches.
- Seven states (Ill., Mass., Mo., N.H., N.Y., R.I. and Vt.) were much wetter than average, with Vermont having its third wettest July on record. Massachusetts and New Hampshire had their fifth wettest July.
- Idaho and Louisiana were much drier than average, with Idaho having its sixth driest July on record and Louisiana its seventh driest July.
- The lack of significant rainfall across the Southeast had little impact on drought conditions. At the end of July, 59 percent of the region was classified in moderate-to-exceptional drought, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor. For the contiguous U.S., about 28 percent of the nation was in moderate to exceptional drought.
Midwest Flooding
- Heavy rains fell across parts of the Midwest again in July, continuing a trend that began last October. An area from central Iowa through northeastern Missouri and western Illinois accumulated more than twice the normal July rainfall. At Long Branch Reservoir in north central Missouri, 18.64 inches fell – more than three times the normal amount. The heavy rains triggered widespread flash flooding in Missouri and Iowa. Mark Twain Lake in Missouri reached a record of 640.36 feet above mean sea level on July 30. Illinois and Missouri had their wettest January to July on record.
Wildfires
- Continued dry conditions in July across northern and central California hindered efforts to contain a dozen large wildfires. Large fires also developed last month in other states, including Texas, Oklahoma, and North Carolina. From January 1st to July 31st, 53,796 wildfires have burned more than 3.5 million acres of the United States, according to statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center. This activity is close to the 1999-2008 average and well below the year-to-date extent of the past two years.
Other Events
- A rare EF-2 tornado struck in New Hampshire on July 24 and claimed one life and injured several others.
- Hurricane Bertha formed in the tropical Atlantic on July 3, and while not making landfall, was the longest-lived, pre-August Atlantic tropical cyclone on record. It became extratropical on July 20. The same day, Hurricane Dolly developed in the Caribbean Sea and made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane at South Padre Island, Texas on July 22. Dolly is the most intense tropical cyclone to make U.S. landfall since Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
- Heavy rain from Tropical Storm Dolly brought relief from drought across parts of the Southwest and in southern Texas. However, up to eight inches of rain fell within 36 hours over parts of southern New Mexico, resulting in many flash floods, which claimed one life, and brought total property damage estimates of around $1.5 billion.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
On the Web:
NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov
NCDC July 2008 analysis: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/jul/jul08.html
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What about natural variences.That’s was the global warming crowd ,which is shrinking daily , says when it is cooler or colder than normal.I for the life of me can’t see how this country has been so blindsided by all these lies and scare tatics by Al Gore and Henson .Maybe they shoud be on trial for crimes against humanity.I mean we as A country are wast’t all this money on something that we have NO control of.Just think for A moment. My 60 watt bulb in my home in N.C. is causing Ice to melt at the artic.How stupid is that. How can ice melt when the air temp doesn’t get above freezing???????? The only way is something has to be in the water to begin with and that something is VOLCANOS’S.
The true citation is :
NOAA: U.S. Temperature Above Normal in July
July 2008 was the 73th coolest July for the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
Do you agree ?
I’m melting! I’m melting! What a world! What a world! (the witch in the wizard of Oz)
Just for grins and giggles, I’ve been following the temps here in Pueblo, Colorado this summer. Pueblo is high dry grassland with an annual rain fall of about 11 inches. The summers here can get hot.
We had a run of 100 degree days late July and early August. To the best of my record keeping, there is only one day where we broke a record (105 on August 2nd) set in 1903.
I look at the monthly averages on AOL (brought into my home by the weather channel), and they show a record of just 100 degrees set in 1980. As a matter of fact, All of the records are late 20th century. Somehow I think I’ll believe the local paper which has been around for darn near 150 years.
My theory is that we might be hot, but if we ain’t breakin’ records, it ain’t as hot as it has been. And yes, I know my little spot on the world is just that, a little spot. (a really great little spot I might add!)
Maybe someone would like to confirm this one way or another, but I’ve just had an e-mail from Montreal telling me it’s the worst Summer on record. Is that right?
Max
[…] NOAA: U.S. Temperature Above Normal in July [image] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE […]
DAV (10:53:19) :
Right, we average something like two tornadoes a year, and those are usually weaker. The fatality was the first since 1895 or something like that. One thing interesting about the tornado was that it stayed on the ground for 80 minutes and traveled 50 miles. The latter is a record for the state.
My wife drove across the path a couple days ago and was duly impressed with the swath of tree and structure damage.
The most famous New England tornado was the Worcester Massachusetts tornado of 1953 which was classified (retrospectively) as a F4 storm. Some folks made a pretty good case to get it F5 status but failed. One important scientific result from that storm was it was the first storm to clearly show that a thunderstorm could inject moist air into the stratosphere. Oh – it last 84 minutes, just a little longer than the EF-2.
However, all in all the 2008 storm doesn’t seem to deserve notice in the press release. I think the odd weather pattern with the tropical feel and persistant upper level low is more significant. The 13 days of rain (6″ or so) was not entirely appreciated here…. Another death happened yesterday when a SUV was washed off a road in flash flooding.
Well here in southern ontario Canada it’s been rain, rain, and more rain.
temps have been cool all this spring and summer. By this time in the season it’s usually hot, humid with some thunder storms. Temps on the local weather station have mostly been below average. The good news is no watering restrictions and the levels in the great lakes are up.
The bad news is I have to cut the lawn every other day!!!
Max (15:11:01) wrote: “Maybe someone would like to confirm this one way or another, but I’ve just had an e-mail from Montreal telling me it’s the worst Summer on record.”
What do they mean by “the worst”? Was it too cold, too hot, too windy, too wet, or too what?
Regardless, NOAA’s release is simply breathless in the sense they try to make something out of nothing. But that really shouldn’t surprise anyone!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Let’s not forget two things about the NCDC’s reports for the US.
1) They are not Urban Heat Island Adjusted
2) They are preliminary and the corrected results will not be published
averages for temperature are COMPLETELY ridiculous.
It takes an awful lot of assumption and hubris to think that the temperature has an “average” like a living being, and isn’t changing due to the continuously changing nature of our universe.
Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand are losing crops due to extremely cold weather and late hard frosts. Lettuce is selling at a higher price than meat. Looking at the sea ice extent around Antarctica, with just a bit more ice, there would be an ice bridge between the southern tip of South America, and the ice around Antarctica. Plus the SH sea ice anomaly chart shows the beginnings of a hockey stick shape! Karma seems to have a yen to bite someone.
From the NOAA press release:
[my emphasis]
No bias there. Just like the NOAA’s [un-issued] press releases for the months when there was dramatic cooling.
Four out of five of those “much” warming states would fit under a postage stamp. Any one of those cooling states is bigger those four combined.
Here is eastern Ontario, Canada, we have had a very cool summer. Only two days since mid-June has it exceeded 86 F (30 C), In recent years were we’ve been closer to 20 by now. Our NOAA, Environment Canada, is drinking the same Kool Aid (pardon the pun) as NOAA. Trying to tell us that overall summer temps have been normal or slightly above normal due to the facts that night time temperatures were higher (since the day time temps have been tangibly lower by any account). While we are sleeping at night, we are clearly missing the best part of our short Canadian summer. Utter trash. They are not being intellectually honest with empirical data – for the sole purpose of keeping the population on alert for catastrophic global warming. Everyone is grumbling about the cool weather.
just an add from the northeast. its been a really beautiful summer with mild days and cool nights. I dont know where Nasa is, but this has been an air conditionless summer in which I almost had to put the heat on a few times
David Pridham “Trying to tell us that overall summer temps have been normal or slightly above normal due to the facts that night time temperatures were higher (since the day time temps have been tangibly lower by any account). While we are sleeping at night, we are clearly missing the best part of our short Canadian summer. Utter trash. They are not being intellectually honest with empirical data”
So you think they should leave out temperatures from 23.00 to 7.00 you’re not awake!! So leaving this time slot out would be more honest would it?
Let’s not beat around the bush, the average temperatures are there for a reason, not to support the religous cult of global cooling!
David Pridham “Trying to tell us that overall summer temps have been normal or slightly above normal due to the facts that night time temperatures were higher (since the day time temps have been tangibly lower by any account). While we are sleeping at night, we are clearly missing the best part of our short Canadian summer. Utter trash. They are not being intellectually honest with empirical data”
So you think they should leave out temperatures from 23.00 to 7.00 you’re not awake!! So leaving this time slot out would be more honest would it?
Let’s not beat around the bush, the average temperatures are there for a reason, not to support the religous cult of global cooling!
Environment Canada’s prediction was for a warmer and dryer than normal summer in eastern Canada. 75% of the days thus far between June and August 11th have had measurable precipitation and cloud cover dominates. Temps struggle to surpass 24 C (76 F) on the sunnier days – a far cry from the average of 27 C (81 F) during the height of the summer. Night time lows have been bang on the historical norm of about 15 C (60 F). We have had NO sleepless summer nights where the temps stay in the 70’s. Air conditoners sit rusting in the summer of 2008. We have yet to water our lawn in 2008. Yet, Environment Canada continues to try to convince the media that its forecast is almost bang on. I can do so by telling people that nights are warmer than average – since everyone would understand their dishonesty if they tried to convince us that daytime temps were anywhere close to average. It’s warm late at night while you’re sleeping folks, honest! Environment Canada is complicit with Al Gore’s lie of the century and are in damage control to either manipulate empirical data or outright lie. Average (or more precisely MEAN) temperatures are important – just don;t mislead. EVERYONE in this City who has shivered through a cool, rainfilled summer knows that they are being fed a lie.
To throw out the gauntel and accuse me of following the “Cult” of global cooling is a common tactic of the frothing-at-mouth Al Gore zealots. If ever a cult of intolerence of other’s ideas existed, it’s from the Global Warming zealots. Between death threats and threats to cut-off funding to climatologists who don’t follow Gore’s pseudo science – the global warmers are on-par with most militant special interest groups ever witnessed. Web sites are available for those who follow Gore’s mantra – but are unwilling to put in their own time to research the subject – that provide rehersed respones to global warming debates at cocktail parties and dinner engagement. Canned responses from lemmings. Think for yourselves everyone and don’t let them intimidate you.
[July 2008 was the 30th warmest July for the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895]
Does that include the 60% UHI effect part of the warming.
Maybe someone would like to confirm this one way or another, but I’ve just had an e-mail from Montreal telling me it’s the worst Summer on record. Is that right?
Max
If it’s in an e-mail, it must be true, Max. Whatever “it” and “true” is, it’s bad, really bad. There’s even a consensus on this matter. Just ask any Parrot, or perhaps Alex Baldwin.
David Pridham- You do realise that average temperatures are taken from the entire 24 hours don’t you? It includes the high of the day, the low of the night and the remaining 23 hours and 58 minutes.
Darwin had the same doubters but as more evidence came to light, the theory of Evolution by natural selection became accepted as the best theory. The only doubters are religous extremists that deny the evidence and force their warped ideas on the young and gullible, the same opposition that AGW is facing now.
Keep telling yourself that the Canadian government is lying to you about the temperatures….its all a conspiracy isn’t it!
Coolest rainiest summer in over 15 yrs and Environment Canada is sticking with their forecast of a warmer, dryer summer than average. They control the information and spin it to meet their mission statement. Shockingly, they have not released a media report regarding July temperatures. In early July , they quickly released a statement suggested that June temps were 0.5 C warmer than average at our airport – due to the “warm nights” – which supported their un-erring predictions of a warmer than average summmer which is intended to keep a global warming doubting public on the edge of their seats. Here we are in mid-August and no similar statement has been released since it would be impossible for them to stastically manipulate any mean, median or mode temperature data for July to meet their mission statement.
I’m not surprised by the sheer audacity of the Gore zealots – comparing people who refuse to blindly accept the man-made global warming myth to luudites or Evolution deniers. There was considerably more scientic evidence to support Darwin’s original evolution hypothesis than the made made global warming theory.
More web sites with scripted responses for Global Warming deniers are clearly needed.
Mary,
What a delight you are!
Mike
David Pridham- “There was considerably more scientific evidence to support Darwin’s original evolution hypothesis than the made made global warming theory. ”
Where do you get this garbage from!! Darwin’s theory was largely based on observation and hypothesising using palaeontological and natural historic evidence available at the time, there was very little scientific method used (ie. the testing of the hypothesis using a control etc.) The proponants of AGW have experiments, models etc. to test the theory (and no serious scientist would ever say “the science is settled”! Leave that to the politicians who know [moderator deletion] anyhow.
Why do you try and tell us that the Canadian Government is misinforming its population when it has only released the June figures. HadCRUT3 hasn’t released the July figures yet, does that mean there in this conspiracy as well? Why are you trying to scare people into believing your deluded conspiracy theory, take a note out of Anthony’s book; drop the scare tactics and stick to the truth……and stop trying to destroy those trilobites..the truth is out!!