Yes, this is a real current temperature presented by NOAA/NWS for the forecast of Addison, TX near Dallas.
![160-in-addison-tx-national-weather-service[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/160-in-addison-tx-national-weather-service1.jpg?quality=83)
I checked the airport ASOS at Dallas Addison Airport (KADS) and sure enough, the reading is there:
Source: http://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KADS.html
This is likely an ASOS station failure, which is a fairly common occurance, like I pointed out in Honolulu a couple of years ago:
More on NOAA’s FUBAR Honolulu “record highs” ASOS debacle, PLUS finding a long lost GISS station
I find it amazing they don’t have a simple data sanity check built into the NOAA data dissemination system. This wouldn’t even pass in Death Valley. How many other incorrect temperatures get logged but never noticed because they aren’t so absurd as to be impossible?
h/t to D.B. Stealey and Moonbattery
john another says:
October 16, 2013 at 5:45 pm
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Gosh I was making a dumb joke, not trying to start a food fight.
Thanks for correcting my misrepresentation btw Steven, getting your take on this wrong was unintentional stupidity on my part. The rest was intentional stupidity on my part that was supposed to be mildly amusing.
Three months ago I started recording temps and other weather symptoms at my house, about 12 miles from Richmond International Airport (RIC or KRIC, don’t care). Our temps have been consistently 2 to 3 degrees lower than the airport, with fewer 90-degree days, etc. We had long noticed that the airport readings were quite high. If Chris Moffatt’s temps now agree with the airport’s, that may mean he’s in metro Richmond’s heat island; out here in the country (southeast corner of Mechanicsville, toward New Kent) we don’t usually get the same readings as the airport. I plan to keep my record for a while, just to see what happens.
For what it’s worth, if you go to the running score of the decoded observations, that odd result did get flagged as “Suspect” by quality control:
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=&sid=KADS&num=48&raw=0&dbn=m&banner=off
And if you look at the raw observations, the next one (two hours later) includes the “COR” tag indicating that it is a correction of the previous report. (When an error occurs, the erroneous entry isn’t replaced, but is superceded with a “corrected” observation.)
According to my aeronautical charts (I’m a private pilot), KADS is a Class-D airport that’s tucked under the “upside-down-wedding-cake” of the Class B KDFW airspace. And according to AirNav (http://www.airnav.com/airport/KADS), while KADS has an AWOS-3 automated station, it’s only available by phone (rather than on a broadcast frequency, as ASOS and AWOS generally are for untowered airports). At towered airports, the weather observations are done by humans and then are broadcast (usually hourly, with special (SPEC) designation when warranted) by a human reading them (on a tape loop) over the ATIS frequency. At towered airports where the tower isn’t open 24 hours a day, the compiled reports will be supplemented by the automated station during the hours that the tower is closed. (See, for example, the daily compilation for Class D Lebanon, NH : http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=&sid=KLEB&num=48&raw=1&dbn=m&banner=off ). However, KADS is a bit of an oddball in that no compilation of any kind is done during hours when the tower is closed (10pm – 6am). If you look at the two links up above for KADS, you’ll see that in the raw observations the 9:47pm observation is post-tagged with “last” and then the next observation is at 6:47am the next morning.
Anyway….. looking the raw observations, it’s clear that someone typed in “171” rather than “17” as they should have (raw observations and the ATIS/ASOS/AWOS stuff you hear uses celsius temperatures). Given that the COR didn’t appear for a couple hours, I doubt that the ATIS broadcast to pilots was stating a temperature of 171! (ATIS is read by a human, not a computer-generated voice, as ASOS and AWOS are.) But indeed, one hopes that data screening keeps stuff like this out of downstream database building.
Wait for it; a drought will be declared.
I would love to know how that error got in there. Human transcription error?
Instruments and computer algorithms don’t often produce errors of +100.
It’s a very strange error in my view, and some root cause analysis would be entirely appropriate if those responsible actually care about their data quality..
Are they predicting snow and ice? After all, with global warming, water freezes into ice when you heat it. /sarc
@Dale Rainwater, Ware –
Anthony himself ferreted out an number of instances where thermometers were placed by obvious heat sources – asphalt parking lots, exposed to the sun, even under incandescent lights. Sounds like you might be seeing one of these thermometers similarly placed in order to generate fale hish temp readings.
“false high temp readings” – please pardon my sloppy typing.
Dr John Ware: I’m at Elko, VA about 3 miles from Bottoms Bridge, far east Henrico Co. Since they fixed (or did they?) the KRIC AWOS my readings are seldom more than a degree or two lower than the AWOS. Never above however…..funny thing that! But definitely not in the urban heat island. I think we’re talking minor differences between Elko and M’ville easily possible because they are about 15 miles apart.
Cheers
Come on guys it is only a type-O big deal
The 14:47 has now been removed.
Truthseeker says: October 16, 2013 at 2:54 pm
and charles the moderator says: October 16, 2013 at 2:03 pm
But it’s a dry heat.
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Yeah, maybe these things don’t show up on Infra Red …
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What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?
Another one of those rogue “hotspots”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/stalking-the-rogue-hotspot/
shenanigans24 says:
October 16, 2013 your :57 pm
Don’t deny it, 97% of all computers agree it was 160F.
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Think about that ,absolutely perfect, quote. Ain’t technology great!
Think about that systemically across your digital worlds > ?
You didn’t mention comm links; therein I think lay the cause.
A couple years back my normally accurate ‘atomic’ 60 kHz WWVB-controlled/corrected clock was off one solid minute. One whole minute! The next day and since then it has been spot on …
Conclusion: I suspect a corrupted ‘comm’ channel at 60 kHz due to ???? (something in the area being switched on or off at the very moment that the LSB “ones” digit was being transmitted by WWVB). I don’t recall any T-storms in the immediate area.
I have video of this, with 10 MHz WWV audio playing in the background while the 1-minute off ‘Atomic’ clock’s face is surveyed …
.
Robert of Ottawa says:
October 16, 2013 at 4:49 pm
charles the moderator says October 16, 2013 at 2:03 pm:
But it’s a dry heat.
A dry heat? In Dallas? Come on! People in Dallas move from AC in the house to the AC in the car to the AC in the workplace. Just like people in Ottawa in winter.
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En route from house to car, I frequently have to duck passing fish and submarines. No such thing as a dry heat in Dallas.
Houston is worse. They snorkel in the streets.
Not a typo, relative humidity as is wrong.
Maybe we should have paid them when they asked?
Hmmm… If this is true it sounds a lot like climate manipulation by people who don’t like Texas, to me!?!
Mark Albright says
which seems to be a good theory.
But do met guys have no form of QC checks that would identify this as a possible error right up front? Its a fairly easy one to spot….data vastly different from previous might at least ask for verification after entry.
The more I see of met/clim ‘science’, the more I am convinced that there are huge system(at)ic failures in basic data collection.
I once speculated a little on what would be the ideal organisational and practical way to study climate. And it all began with designing and maintaining a rigorous data collection network. Bad data –> bad science.
This does not seem to be a lesson that is widely understood in climo circles.
Not a typo. System is automated. SHEESH…
I was at a traffic light in Melbourne Florida on October 13th around 4pm. Sign at the bank next to me says it’s 96°F, car says it’s 85°F, and radio says it’s 88°F…all at the exact same moment for the same place (less than a mile from the airport).
So I’m thinking that whoever manufactured the temperature gauge at the bank must have been the same folks that made the one in Dallas…only the one at the bank is much more accurate. 😉
This appears to me as possibly a subtle software failure, causing the reporting of air temperature to be 100 degrees F away from what it was. The dewpoint appears to me as plausibly correct, and the relative humidity appears to me as calculated from a plausible dewpoint and an implausible temperature.
Y’alls be careful down there now; specially if you are entered in the Dallas Marathon; be sure and carry a bottle of water with you.
Mebbe they are just allowing plenty of room for this recorded data to be “adjusted downward” at some future time for one last stab at proving CAGW.