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.
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Huh. I’ve chimed in several times here, commenting about the cooler weather in Arkansas. I didn’t need the weatherman nor a thermometer to tell me either. Y’all, we recently had a surge into the 90’s and people were rejoicing. Yes, you heard me. People were excited that the temps went back up into the 90’s. It was obvious at that point that people are a bit confused with the weather. They’re hearing all the AGW fear-mongering, but they’re getting unseasonably cool weather. The television is lying to them and it’s causing some sort of weird mental condition in a lot of people. The entire establishment seems on the verge of losing all credibility. It’s sad to watch.
Here is the UK Met Office contribution. Much ado about nothing really although a little damp in places.
————————–
July 2009
Mean temperatures were close to the 1971–2000 normal across the UK. The largest departure was 0.8 °C above normal over Scotland, whereas Wales and parts of western England were slightly below normal. The month was similar to July 2008, but somewhat warmer than July 2007. Rainfall was significantly above normal in almost all areas, particularly in a broad swathe stretching from south-west England, through Wales, the Midlands and northern England into eastern Scotland. These areas recorded over twice the average July rainfall, with south-west England, south Wales and parts of north-east England recording over three times the normal amount. The drier areas were in northern and western Scotland and eastern East Anglia, with up to 150% of the July average. Provisionally, it was the wettest July on record over England and Wales (in a series from 1914), being slightly wetter than July 2007 and much wetter than July 2008. Over Wales it was ranked 2nd in this series, with only July 1939 being wetter. Over the UK, it was also wetter than July 2007 and 2008 and provisionally ranks 4th but close to the July totals in 1936, 1939 and 1988. Sunshine was close to the 1971–2000 normal across the UK, northern and western Scotland faring best with about 120% of normal. The wettest areas were also the dullest, with south-west England and Wales recording typically 80% of normal sunshine.
A maximum temperature of 30.9 °C was recorded at Heathrow (Greater London) on the 1st. Tulloch Bridge (Highland) recorded a minimum temperature of 1.0 °C on the 10th. Cardinham (Cornwall) recorded 94 mm of rainfall in the 24 hours ending at 0900 on the 17th.
Andrew P (04:36:07) :
Regards from your old home town, where it is about 15C and has just started to rain.
Is this my old home town of Aberfeldy?!
Classical signature of a humongous, persistent Hudson Bay / Canadian Shield Low. Actually a bit disturbing.
RE: Hurry up with the plans to deepen the Suez and Panama Canals.
Now that will put one heck of a damper on Global Trade.
It will also regionalize the balance of power.
This, plus, the direct impacts of the Great Cold, plus, the resulting World War …
Say hello to “The Second Age of Migrations.”
Dave Nicosia (04:57:14) : et al
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???
Guys,
The satellite record shows lower troposphere temperature, yes? And air arms upon descent, yes? and the surface in Antarctica cools during the long Antarctic night by radiation, eh? And with the descending air there is possibly very clear sky over antarctic, right? SO descending air during a winter night and one could get exactly what we observe, oui? Well, I don’t know the actual state of affairs, but one could have record high temperatures in the lower troposphere and record cold on the ground. The two observations are not mutually exclusive. It works out in Wyoming like this in the winter.
And of course, the projection of the map makes the “warm” areas (whether they exist or not) look much larger than they really are.
RE: Our tomatoes and potatos just got hit with LATE BLIGHT yesterday.
The leading indicators of complete disaster just keep piling up. Meanwhile, the masses, the mass media and the criminal politicians whistle past the grave yard.
“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…
E M Smith – 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…)”
Umm.. we will indeed have a huge water shortage in SE UK. Not because there is any shortage of water per se, but because there is a shortage of water transport facility and water storage facility.
We were the first country in the world to have a modern water distribution and sewage system (since the Romans?) We have been using this for the last 200 years, and it’s been getting old. And you make much more money building homes in SE England than building reservoirs. What this means is that the UK water provision has been operating with tighter and tighter tolerances. Now, if we have a slightly dry winter we will have hosepipe bans in the summer…..
SteveSadlov (08:45:48) :
This, plus, the direct impacts of the Great Cold, plus, the resulting World War …
Say hello to “The Second Age of Migrations.”
Are you becoming an astrologist or just a realist?
John Luft (08:48:48) :
“And of course, the projection of the map makes the “warm” areas (whether they exist or not) look much larger than they really are.”
A yes – Mercator’s projection. A nice bit of maths really – what is it – something to do with a hyperbolic cosine?
I remember an episode of the brilliant BBC radio programme (back in the days when the BBC made us Brits proud) – “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue”. The late great Willie Rushton managed to get Mercator’s Perojection into the ‘late Arrivals at the Geographer’s Ball”. Genius.
John Luft (08:48:48) :
And of course, the projection of the map makes the “warm” areas (whether they exist or not) look much larger than they really are.
Good point.
Jimmy Haigh (08:12:11) :
Andrew P (04:36:07) :
Regards from your old home town, where it is about 15C and has just started to rain.
Is this my old home town of Aberfeldy?!
Yes, I’m not psychic by the way, I recall you mentioned that you were from ‘feldy in a previous thread. It has stopped raining and the sun is out now. If you want daily updates go to: http://www.aberfeldyweather.com (forgotten his name, ex TV weatherman, who moved to Camserney a few years back).
Lemme see if I have got this straight; 73.5 F is 0.8 F below the average of 74.3, and converting to actual temperature, that is 0.444 deg C lower than average.
Precipitation on the other hand was 2.90 inches (RSF units), or 0.14 above the average of 2.76.
Now a quick Soroban computation says that is a 5.07 % increase in total preciptiation, resulting from a 0.444 C decrease in average temperature, which would be a 11.4% decrease in precipitation for a one degree C fall in average temperature.
Of corurse Wentz et al claimed that a one degree C rise in mean surfgace temperature results in a 7% increase in total precipitation.
So for the USA, the precip is backwards, and too large a change to boot, compared to Wentz et al who of course were talking aboput global numbers.
So one might conclude that what is good for the USA doesn’t necessarily hold for everybody else.
The NOAA numbers may be real; but they don’t say diddley about global climate change; well the climate is going to change no matter what NOAA says.
“I have never understood why anyone thinks it’s so important to have polar ice caps.”
In the interglacial before this one (which was warmer than this one has been) it is likely that an ice-free pole in summer was the norm.
The bottom line on all of this is that it does not conform with nor can it be explained by the GCM’s. They are obviously not considering all of the factors involved in climate. The centerpiece of “An Inconvenient Truth” was Hurricane Katrina. If stronger, more frequent hurricanes are a sure sign of AGW, then what is NOT stronger, more frequent hurricanes a marker of?
I honestly don’t care what these temperatures do on a monthly basis. It is the extent to which they are explained by the models that is important and the models are clearly wrong.
I’ve seen on these blogs where warmers are hoping for an El Nino so that temperatures go up. That is not proof of AGW and is an implicit acknowledgement that there is more to the global temperature than the alarmists are willing to explicitly acknowledge. The same goes for sunspots. The warmers get all excited over a few sunspots. The same logic applies, the are tacitly acknowledging that sunspots will affect global temps.
Sorry for the rant, I’m getting a little tired of all of this nonsense.
So is it possible that in July 2009, Antarctica had a positive temperature anomaly in winter, with no daily sunlight anywhere south of 72deg 50min South, for the whole of that month? (1.) What’s wrong with that? Well maybe nothing…
Have a look at the annual temperature track for the Dome Argus AWS (2.). Dome A is located at 80deg 22min S, and yes it’s only one measurement point, but be honest, just how many weather stations are there in Antarctica? Look at the subsurface 1m temperature trace (the blue line). This winter it is about minus 60C compared to last July’s value of -62C. Not convinced? Look at July 2006 & 2005, it seems to me that July 2009 is warmer than previous years.
So where has all this extra heat in the ground come from? Well it’s not sunlight that’s for sure. The ice is warmer than the air, so the heat is residual summer energy stored in the ground? Nice try and in general yes for the deeper levels, but over the last month the 0.1m subsurface temperature on the daily track has been rising as well as falling, but rising after the air temperature has increased and not before. (It’s now falling again (3.) but as always the 0.1m subsurface sensor is following on, about 3 days behind, and not preceding the changes in air temperature).
The only possible explanation is that, during July 2009, in the dark austral winter with no ambient light to warm the surface, the air at Dome A has been episodically heating the ice at the shallowest subsurface level (0.1m). How so? Well think of the Chinook wind (4.) for example, when warm air melts the snow; that’s air heating the ground. But there are no mountains nearby to Dome A that can generate a Foehn wind (5.) so that cannot be right! Yes, also true, but this warmth in Antarctica is caused by descending upper tropospheric air being heated by adiabatic compression. When there is an active surface anticyclone, the air in it warms as it falls under gravity, turning potential energy into kinetic energy; and so this July, the ice surface at Dome A has been warmed by the air coming down from above, giving us a positive temperature anomaly.
So what happens to all this descending air? The resulting extra mass of air in the anticyclone loses heat at the ice surface, as can be seen by the marked temperature inversion (6.) in the Dome A air profile. The radiative cooling to space of the ice surface, cools the air above it and generates a dense cold air mass that advects north off the ice-cap, down slope to sea level (Dome A is at 4084m 13,240ft elevation). This katabatic wind (7.) helped form the mobile polar air mass which caused the recent snowfall in Argentina (8.).
Links
1.) Sunrise sunset times http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php
2). Dome A annual temperatures http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=20368
3). Done A current weekly temperatures http://www.aad.gov.au/weather/aws/dome-a/index.html
4). Chinook wind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinook_wind
5). Foehn wind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_wind
6). Temperature inversion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology)
7). Katabatic wind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katabatic_wind
8). Historic snow event in South America http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/23/historic-snow-event-in-south-america/
I am a little late to this party, but that UAH map showing a July heatwave in Antarctica also doesn’t seem to jive with the NSIDC Antarctic Ice Extent data:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
As a resident [unfortunately] of the lower “left” coast I’d like to know why my “tummaters is nuthin but li’l, hard, one-inch green knobs” instead of what they should be if it is so warm here?
The only veggie doing well is the Swiss chard.
Regarding the Arctic, my earlier forecast has not changed. The jet stream pattern set up at the beginning of the melt season has been resistant to change. Much of the ice has compacted together from strong winds opposite those we have had the past two melt season. What has melted as melted slowly in place. I am still predicting a close to average amount of ice at the beginning of the ice build-up season and I believe the ice that is still there is anything but thin. I am ready now to predict a strong return to normal ice levels (and am leaning to above average amounts) with average 2010 Summer melt. We will be solidly within the ice average all year round in short order. The melt pattern of the past 10 years or so was probably related to weather pattern variations tied to jet stream behavior during El Nino’s and then jet stream behavior during La Nina and had nothing to do with CO2.
Philip Mulholland, you sweety! Your post was simply delicious eye candy. Talk more weather to me! The prevailing winds (more circular and towards the Arctic instead of out to Fram Strait) and weather fronts (what they had) around the Arctic have allowed those of us who are weather geeks to watch the Arctic in its basic mode. If the basic pattern prevails, we are on a return to normal levels of ice year round. It may even be possible that Summer melt could become less than average due to continued ice thickness buildup caused by inward/circular Summer wind patterns.
Just the facts, te graph you posted is for Antarctic sea ice extent. Look closely and you will see that the anomaly is mostly over the Antarctic continent and not over the southern seas.
The flow of heat is from the Sun into the oceans and then back out again via the atmosphere. Antarctica is hotter than normal so it’s radiating more heat away to space and cooling down. The blue bits are cooler than normal so are radiating less heat and warming up. A cooling Earth looks warmer!
Paul Vaughan (02:01:35) : You wrote: “Temps quickly plunged to less than HALF of what they were.”
We know what you mean by this statement, for example, the Temp may have gone from 40 C to 20 C. 20 being HALF of 40. But do this in F degrees and we have approximately: 104 F to 68 F; or a drop of [(104 – 68)/ 104 ] = .346; or a decrease of just over one-third. One has to use Kelvins to get a correct answer – this scale has a non-arbitrary zero point.
Weather, but not really temperature specific. This happened yesterday near Des Moines. Mother Nature rules.
Just to show what 70 mph winds and large hail can do.
This ran west to east about 25 miles south of us Sunday morning.
http://www.kcci.com/video/20350222/index.html
http://www.kcci.com/video/20349385/index.html