Gotta love this, with all the hullabaloo over a possible new world temperature record in Death Valley, a logging town in Washington has pre-empted them.
Hilariously, the reading of 139 degrees F is listed as “suspect” as it should be, but at 133 degrees F in the next reading (just under the Death Valley all time record of 134F) it is listed as “OK”.
See the screencap:
Source: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=otx&sid=KTLW1&num=72&raw=0
h/t to reader Dave Thompson.
Obviously it is an equipment malfunction. I wonder how many other weather stations will go on the fritz in our upcoming heat wave.
“Chad Wozniak says:
June 29, 2013 at 12:42 pm”
I heard that on news last night too, and thought it was wrong. The Danakil Depression is in the Afar region in northern Ethiopia, with one of the oldest active volcanoes as well as the intersection of 3 tectonic plates. It is indeed 500 below sea level and will, eventually, become an in-land sea.
Patrick,
If the Denakil Depression is 500′ below sea level, a lot of power could be generated with a few 8′ diameter pipes funneling water through Pelton water wheels from the Med, or from the closest sea level river. A lot of power! If there is eventually going to be an inland sea there, why not benefit with a planned development?
It would be very inexpensive, clean hydroelectric power, without generating any pollution at all; a win-win! And of course, cheap electric power means more economic growth for the local population. If the UN was sincere, it would jump at the chance to provide that infrastructure.
Electric power = money. But I suppose since the Green lobby hates providing more electricity, they would fight such an eminently practical proposal tooth and nail. George Soros and Maurice Strong would lead the charge against it, with their holier-than-thou, fake ‘reasons’ why the indigenous folks simply cannot be allowed to benefit from such a reasonable infrastructure plan.
What is “Fuel temp?” That looked like it matched the lows and made more sense.
GungaDin says:
“Feel free to jump on this comment if you know better, but isn’t it true that the temperature of a conductor affects it’s conductance?
What I don’t know is if higher ambient temperatures effect on a conductor would result in higher or lower recorded temperature.”
I have designed numerous temperature sensor/amplification/A-D conversion circuits in my career so I know that the whole reason for amplifying and then converting to a digital signal as close to the source as possible, and then transmitting that converted digital number instead of the low level original analog signal, is to avoid the very problem about which you speak. The very purpose for transmission of a converted digital signal whether using multiple digital data lines or a single high frequency line is to minimize – no eliminate – the need for post transmission analog signal “noise” correction. Furthermore, even the simplest RTD or thermocouple transducer circuits today now usually use some kind of bridge or 4-wire system to eliminate the sensor wiring as a source of analog noise.
I wouldn’t want to guess what has caused this signal spike without onsite investigation because there are too many things that can create “false” signals like this, including for example these two:
Something else is creating heat locally besides the weather, temp measurement is accurate,
Something has corroded the sensor, or the wiring to the sensor, and the resulting circuit is now confounding moisture and temp.
Since temp measuring sensors and circuitry are now so very, very cheap, why don’t these new remote transmitting temp monitors have redundancy. Why aren’t they self-correcting? Even inexpensive (~$1.30) digital temperature reporting cicuits today can accurately measure from well below freezing to well above the boiling point of water within +/- 0.5 degree C. (See for example: http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/data_sheets/ADT7310.pdf )
Note the dewpoint of 122F. The use of the word suspect is amusing. Reminds me of when I was in the UK in the mid 1990s and there was a news story in the local paper about an elderly woman found stabbed 17 times in her flat. The reported interviewed the constable who said “Foul play could not be ruled out”. Ya think?