From NOAA/NCDC
The July 2009 temperature for the contiguous United States was below the long-term average, based on records going back to 1895, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
The average July temperature of 73.5 degrees F was 0.8 degrees F below the 20th century average. Precipitation across the contiguous United States in July averaged 2.90 inches, which is 0.14 inches above the 1901-2000 average.
U.S. Temperature Highlights
Click for high resolution map (Credit: NOAA)
- An abnormally strong, persistent upper-level pattern produced more than 400 record low minimum temperatures and 1,300 record low maximum temperatures (lowest high temperature) across the nine-state area that make up the Central region.
- Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania experienced their coolest July on record. Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Michigan each had their second coolest July on record, while Minnesota and Tennessee had their third coolest July on record.
- Death Valley, Calif., set a new monthly average maximum temperature at 121.3 degrees F. Temperatures in Death Valley reached 120 degrees F or higher for 22 days, beating the old record of 19 days.
- Several western locations recorded their all-time warmest July. Seattle-Tacoma Airport had an average July temperature of 69.5 degrees F, which was 4.2 degrees F above average. Seattle’s high temperature of 103 degrees F on July 29 is an all-time record. Alaska posted its second warmest July, Arizona had its third warmest, while New Mexico and Washington had their ninth warmest.
- Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 13.3 percent below average in July. Much of this can be attributed to cooler-than-average conditions in the heavily-populated Northeast.
In a related note, UAH has produced this map which not only shows a cooler than normal eastern USA,but many other cool spots around the globe. Oddly, Antarctica appears to be the major contributor to above normal temperatures and the 0.41C global temperature anomaly jump in July 2009.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I have read that the South Pole had a record cold July!
see bottom of article below from Joseph D’Aleo from ICECAP website
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/big_apples_cold_summer/
That does not jive with the satellite record for Antarctica. “Watts” up with that???
I got on NOAA’s site and tried to find their prediction for July 2009. But couldn’t find anything. Can anybody find it?
Sounds lovely to me. I have never understood why anyone thinks it’s so important to have polar ice caps. Without them we’d have easier transit across the north, and a whole new continent to explore and settle in the south. Sure, sea levels would rise some, but I’ll bet we’d gain a lot more land than we’d lose.
Where is it written that our present Earthly climate is the optimum?
/Mr Lynn
“”Stacey (01:23:35) :
The link was good but contained within this is better.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/webphotos/noaa1.jpg“”
Looks like the comera has fallen over. 🙂
Sheesh… how’d I do that! cam, cam, camera (DW insists on talking while…)
E.M.Smith (02:35:07) : wrote:
>> UK Sceptic (01:07:13) : We will also face a chronic water shortage in the
>> future. Anyone living with the British climate will understand that the only
>>chronic shortage we are facing is political reality…
>>Pardon? Water shortage? In a country surrounded by seas when
>>desalinization is cheaper than a water pipe from the mountains 100 miles
>>away? Water shortage, when the last time “mum” was “home” it rained every
>>day except July 9, I think it was? (It was a long summer, from August 3 to the
>>5th 😉 I think she said…
The UK government made these dire predictions (water and food shortage etc) based on met office data. The same met off that predicts “Barbeque Summer” and can’t even manage to get a five day forecast right. Perhaps they need to have some windows installed, or even go out side and look.
We’ve had a summer full of news about Global Warming, how It’ll change the country by 2050, and how local councils should prepare. The best way to prepare is to ignore it and buy lots of road grit for the winter.
If it gets any drier this summer, I’ll need a jet ski and scuba gear.
If we maintain a warm Antartica for a few months then It will be interesting in see what happens to the southern vortex and the flow on to SOI. Perhaps we will return to conditions similar to the 1970’s when the vortex was weaker and Antartica was also warmer ?
To John F. Hultquist:
I would love to live in a world where politicians are able to put two and two together and come up with four. But in the real world, politicians have their own agenda and when you dare to speak out against their agenda, they call you brownshirts, a reference to the Nazis. The irony is the politicians are more like Nazis because they seek to silence dissenters by force and have open contempt for a particular group of people.
To UK Sceptic:
It is very sad when people seem to forget that plants don’t like cold weather but love warm weather. You are told to grow more food because food will be more scarce in a world in which the conditions are more favorable for plant growth. Some people seem to forget the lessons I learned in early grade school science class. It is very sad that the BBC knows less about plants than a 10 year old.
Richard111 (05:16:00) : “Looks like the comera has fallen over.”
Dyam! Just when I think I have picked up another nice technical term or instrument, Richard, you follow on with a disclaimer…
UK Sceptic (01:07:13) : We will also face a chronic water shortage in the future
Big chief says:” Sun heat water, water make cloud, cloud raining, water come, You being Fool not know”
Global warming may be incovenient, but for a real disaster try global cooling. GW? Bring it on, we can handle it and still prosper.
Paul Vaughan (02:01:35) wrote (in part):
…..in Vancouver, BC, we hit the highest temperature EVER recorded in late July….. Temps quickly plunged to less than HALF of what they were.
Paul, sorry to sound like a correcting teacher, but a drop from 30°C to 15°C is really a drop on the absolute scale of 303K to 288K. The number 15 may be half of 30, but it isn’t half on the celsius temperature scale. You have to use the absolute scale.
And to continue the correcting mood, it’s TOE the line, not TOW.
It’s yet another grey and damp day here in New Brunswick. Enough to put anyone in a bad mood. I’m still waiting for flowers to appear on my tomato plants. (A tip for gardeners is that you can grow tomato plants in pots and take them indoors for the winter. They will continue to produce fruit, albeit smaller, through the winter if the plants are kept warm and get whatever sun can be gleaned. And the plants will continue to produce fruit through the following summer…..)
IanM
Paul Vaughan (02:01:35) :
I see the bright red for Washington state.
Just across the border in Vancouver, BC, we hit the highest temperature EVER recorded in late July. It was dreadful. But thank goodness: The furnace has abruptly morphed into a freezer. Temps quickly plunged to less than HALF of what they were. Such relief. Rainy +15C makes for MUCH clearer thinking and far more comfortable outdoor rec. Even Yellowknife (Northwest Territories) was worse off today: 8 degrees warmer. Looking forward to a cool & rainy fall.
————-
Paul, I live in BC, too. I am struck by how querulous many of my compatriots are when we have weather; which is most of the time. Contrary to popular perception, playing tennis at 34C is no harder than playing at 15C, you just sweat more.
I’m not as convinced as you are that your thinking is clearer now that it has cooled down; your idea that 288 kelvin is less than half of 309 kelvin belies your assertion.
I will be whining when it’s cool and rainy. I bet you will be too!
Gtrip, relax. Folks always like to speculate and ruminate on the weather. Somehow it feels like one has some “control”; we also like to inform each other about what it’s like in different, specific, areas of Earth. And weather turns into climate. Amazing that.
Bob Tisdale (01:14:45) :
“I’ve posted the July OI.v2 SST anomaly data. Global SST anomalies dropped slightly in July to +0.28 deg C:
http://i25.tinypic.com/24g7kwj.png”
Always read your research and am very grateful. Always have a question. Do we know that SSTs are not tampered with like land temperatures– some are tortured, often out of all recognition? Are there checks on the data that can be trusted?
E.M.Smith (23:30:32) :
I just finally looked at the UAH map. They say that the west coast of the USA was warm (if I can interpret beige as warm). I’m sorry, but this has been the coldest da..rned summer in the SF Bay Area in 30+ years of my living here.
If they are calling this warm, or even just normal, I’m calling Bull Shi…eist on their whole map. I’ve finally got some tomatoes, but the green beans are still sulking and the cool season plants are thrilled. This is NOT a warm summer in the South Bay…
Those “statewide” maps are often not very accurate in depicting how temperatures actually vary by climate regions WITHIN a state. The climate division web site is not updated for July yet, but here’s a map for June:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/tmp/climdiv/cd74.94.216.225.222.7.42.3.prcp.png
Love your site, but I have one complaint. When you put an image in your post, can you please verify that it’s either readable, or that we are able to click it to go to a larger, readable image please?
For example, I have no idea what the legend says in that first image. It looks like “1=Celcius, 115=Alamcat”. I can’t imagine what that could possibly mean.
Thanks!
I know we all love anecdotal evidence of the weak summer so here’s my offering.
It’s definitely been a ‘cool’ summer here in central New Jersey. We’ve not hit 100F at all and only one or two 90F days. We should have hit 90F almost every day since midsummer. I’m not complaining though, it’s been great weather for kayaking. I love to kayak the local rivers. I do yearn for something differnt though.
One item on my bukkit list is to take a guided kayak tour in Alaska or British Columbia. Financial and family pressures prevent that from happening right now so I live vicariously by reading the web-sites of companies that offer such tours. Here’s one entry from Uncommon Adventures, posted July 28, talking about a trip on Lake Superior:
http://uncommonadv.com/blog/?p=56
Quote:
Dave Nicosia (04:57:14) :
I have read that the South Pole had a record cold July!
…That does not jive with the satellite record for Antarctica. “Watts” up with that???
That is the well know problem NOAA has with color ink jet printing:There is some software or printing hardware which needs to be fixed up, specially with the red ink…
OT but perhaps of interest
A man whose ideas wouldn’t have passed muster for a minute 20 years ago is now nature mag’s eco-warrior hero
http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/lovelock/
I have nothing to say – left speechless by the egotistical tangle of hypocrisy, ambiguity and contradiction!
It’s from Nature’s “Fear and Loathing in Copenhagen” portal
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/roadtocopenhagen/index.html
Praise the Lord and pass the valium
OT: Have you noticed that “Anthony’s Effect” did not work this time on the Sun?
It has surpassed the 30 days line.
Dave Nicosia,
The south pole is one point only, and not an entire continent, is it not?
Right now two points in Antarctica are pretty darn cold.
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/antarctica%20environment/weather.htm
Nother OT sorry!
Financial Times reports Bjorn Lomborg jumping ship to the AGW boat
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5ebdb666-82a5-11de-ab4a-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
But reading between the lines it sounds not all that unlike his post from WUWT a year ago.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/22/the-green-inquisition/#more-1781
E.M.Smith (02:35:07) : questions UK Sceptic (01:07:13) :’s assertion that we are told by our government we will have a water shortage in the UK. […which UK Sceptic rebutted with “Anyone living with the British climate will understand that the only chronic shortage we are facing is political reality…”]
It might help to remember that in the UK a water shortage is defined as any two consecutive news cycles without heavy rainfall.
A UK agricultural consultant, ADAS, reports that it is the slowest start to the harvest for 6 years of the crops oilseed rape and winter barley in the UK due to the wet weather in July.
pyromancer76: “Do we know that SSTs are not tampered with like land temperatures– some are tortured, often out of all recognition? Are there checks on the data that can be trusted?”
There is no way to know if recent SST data is “tampered with” and no reason to believe it is.
Using the KNMI Climate Explorer you could run comparison tests from beginning to end of HADSST2, HADISST, ERSST.v2, ERSST.v3, and Kaplan datasets, and compare them to the ICOADS dataset, upon which they’re all based. Those responsible for creating the datasets at NOAA and the Hadley Centre have published papers on the techniques they use for smoothing and infilling missing data. And there are differences.
I found a 1998 step change in the Hadley Centre SST data that appears to be based on their change in “suppliers”.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/12/step-change-in-hadsst-data-after-199798.html
The “curiosity” that’s common to all long-term temperature datasets–that is, they always seem to be adjusted so that trends increase or better match the models when new or updated datasets are released–well, that curiosity exists in the SST data as well. I posted on it here:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/05/recent-differences-between-giss-and.html
and here:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/05/update-of-recent-differences-between.html
Steve McIntyre also posted about it here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6038
The OI.v2 that I post monthly is satellite-based SST data. It is also adjusted. Those satellites can’t do their magic through clouds so the satellite data is supplemented with buoy and ship data. The satellites are also known to create warm biases at high latitudes, so they’re adjusted downward.
Do those satellites have drift problems? Dunno.