Harold Ambler writes:
NOAA’s map of February temperatures across the United States got New England all wrong. It wasn’t “near normal,” at all, as the people of the region can well attest. Oh, and the data, too: Hartford, CT, as an example was actually 5.1 degrees below normal.
As the map above shows, NOAA seems to have struggled in creating a temperature map that accurately conveys what New Englanders recently experienced: a frigid February. Hartford was 5.1 degrees below normal for the month; Boston was 3.1 degrees below normal. Providence was 4 degrees below normal for the month. And yet all three locations fall within the “near normal” portion of NOAA’s map. What’s up with that?
How well did NOAA do representing February temperatures where you live?
Read more here:
NOAA map of February temperatures less than accurate
NOAA speaks with various maps to show February temperatures over the USA 48
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=2790
Houston had its 2nd coldest Feb ever and they have it as ‘near average’
Here is a link explaining how NCDC categorizes:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/dyk/ranking-definition
Basically, it breaks the rankings into thirds for above/below average (e.g., if Feb 2014 falls in the top 3rd coldest Febs. on record, it’s in the “below average” category.) In order to fall into the “much” above/below category, it must have been within the top/bottom 10% of years.
These rankings just don’t make sense. For example Ft. Wayne, IN had its 5th coldest Feb. on record, 3.2F colder than the 12th coldest (bottom 10% cutoff) Feb. on record; yet somehow the NE Indiana climate division doesn’t make it into the “much below average” temperature category.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/iwx/?n=2013_2014winter
Good lesson for the “children” – major distortion by your gov betters.
NOAA is just a propaganda organization.
Eventually Obama will have his “Hitler Reacts” moment before the end of his “Presidency”.
Oh gawd, those ugly orange and yellow blotches are back…..
I also have property in the Ozarks. Mean -5.9 there.
North Central Alabama was super cold, for us.
I’m in southern New Hampshire. February temperatures were definitely below average, as the maple tappers can attest. Tapping normally should have started last month; instead, sap is just barely starting to trickle. Snowfall here was about average, but the cover on the ground is still much higher than usual for mid-March, because the low ongoing temperatures haven’t let the accumulation melt away.
My cat did a double take. Mid Eastern Shore (De,Md,Va peninsula) was also about 5 degrees off, plus our coldest day (-7) since a -9 in 1918. My electric company didn’t get the memo I guess…the average temp is on the bill.
In the ten years I’ve lived east of Baton Rouge, I never had to sweat couplings onto burst water pipes in the attic of my non-heated shop. This year I had to do it twice. The second time I swear I had the water dripping, but forgot the back hose bib. I don’t think there’s anyone around here who would say it was near average.
Long time reader, rare commenter here. It’s stuff like this that really irritates me, knowing that my tax dollars go to producing this total garbage. Raw data for departures from normal are located here:
http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/raw/cx/
For example, the LAX one is here:
http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/raw/cx/cxus46.klox.clm.lax.txt
It shows a departure from normal of +2.6, yet the area is in the “much above average” category when BWI’s departure from normal is -2.9 and the area is listed as “near normal”.
Would it be possible to crowdsource this and make a true map with accurate data and a color scheme that does not mischaracterize the cold?
Kudos for bringing this up. I was just as annoyed with it as Bastardi was.
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A new system? Does that mean they changed the “yard stick”?
How does a “new system” change the past?
It is a very $Taxing way they use to display this information.
Has anybody considered U H I in these numbers or is this raw data.
RE: Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger says:
March 18, 2014 at 3:29 pm
To add to your southern New Hampshire report: I’ve lived on or close by the farm where I work since 1988 (and visited it on and off all the way back to 1968,) and I can never remember feeling at all safe about walking on the farm pond’s ice this late into March. It must be two, and may be three, feet thick. Because 1/10th of an iceberg is above water, the ice is several inches higher than the outlet to the pond. You could drive a truck across it.
Two years ago it hit 80 on St. Pat’s Day, the earth was thawed, and I planted my peas the earliest ever. This year? My bet is planting won’t be possible until late April.
we had a few warmer than normal days here in central maine, wonder if they were (on the whole) enough to offset the colder than normal temps.
while our colder days were colder than normal for the most part each one alone wasn’t a huge difference and the few 45-48 F days may just have offset them.
I suppose its all in how the data is massaged. I seldom pay attn to the cold because…well..its Maine.
This is good. It needs to be encouraged. When the average person sees this, they will KNOW, without doubt that we are dealing with a bunch of liars. Any future pronouncements from these organizations will be given the credibility it deserves.
This can only be good.
Nick Stokes says:
March 18, 2014 at 2:51 pm
It could have something to do with this. They changed to a new system on March 13.
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Where I come from, we call that “moving the goalposts.”
NYC. Coldest in years.
Thank you for the link, Nick Stokes.
Using the national temperature rank maps for February of 2013 and 2014, using their scale of 0 (record coldest) to 120 (record warmest); February of 2013 was ranked as ’71’ and 2014 was ranked as ’37’.
Looking at the divisional map (as shown above for February of 2014) for February of 2013, it looks a heck of a lot colder than the above map shows, even though it was a much warmer February than this year. Wonder which map they promoted last February? I’ll bet it wasn’t the divisional map…
Somewhere there is an email from on high that says “hide the decline.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2014/2/supplemental/page-1/
Yes this one is upsetting to realists. This link is the un-massaged data.
I can certainly tell you thay have Virginia incredibly wrong. Way, way, way wrong. It was cold as $#^* here and I have the heating bill to prove it. We had record snow and record cold. How the hell they have that shaded “normal” defies any logic.