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
So presumably in future NOAA will describe any temperatures which are 3-5 deg f above average as near normal. The fact that they don’t and won’t exposes their alarmist agenda.
Just checked and confirmed. My area of SW Virginia was 2.5-3F below normal for February. I would not call that “near normal”.
MattN says:
March 18, 2014 at 5:22 pm
Yep.
They also have a section of North Carolina shaded in as “Above normal” and I ASSURE you that is laugh out loud funny. Why don’t you go tell the residents in that area they were actually above normal and let me know what kind of reaction you get…
Let’s see. 28 days, 3 above normal. All time record lows set on 2 days, virtually all the rest way below normal! But given the report of Gail Combs in a recent comment (Sorry Gail, I forgot where you left it), they seem to be adjusting the temperatures up so that snow becomes rain.
They blew it here! It was the coldest February in this area in the last 30 years. Nowhere near normal (central Virginia).
[snip – fair warning, tone it down or find yourself on pre-moderation -mod]
Hmmm… changing the metrics so that – on pure coincidence, mind you – the cold that has pervaded the US this winter can be made to look like a generally warmer than average year. What luck the change happened this year! How about that? Thank goodness this is a governmental organization that we can trust and we have no reason to suspect of pushing an agenda.
And just to cover my backside: /sarc.
It would be nice to know what it takes to go from ‘below average’ to ‘much below average’? I did a quick calculation. I went to Wunderground weather history for my nearest location here in Bozeman, Montana. I calculated the departure from average for each day. Averaging all departures, I get this February of ours at nearly 12 degrees below average. We had only 8 days above average, 19 days below and 1 right at average. We set a record for Feb 6 at -34 degrees. If I measure this February in firewood units, I probably averaged twice what I normally use.
As a matter of fact I was kinda keeping track of the local temps in relation to actual and considered reporting my findings and asking the same question asked in this post.
For the last couple of years the temps have been about 3-4 degrees high but since the first of this year the temps have been anywhere from 2-8 degrees F high.
This effect is most noticeable when the real temperature is slightly below freezing and making ice at my house while the temps reported (2 1/2 miles away) report anywhere from 34 degrees to 39 degrees.
Area is about 40 miles south of Cleveland Ohio, USA
NOAA’s boss needs Warming, so with their pen they gave it to him.
I wonder if they would be willing to supply a map using last year’s method. A digitized map and the raw data should take about 1 hour or less because they obviously have the code for the old pattern.
I don’t get it. There should only be 3 categories.
1. Above average
2. Much above average
3. Record warmest
I can understand if the weather isn’t cooperating but that is no reason for NOAA to change their format.
/s
No way Maryland was near normal. This is the coldest winter in a long time. We had cooler winters for the last few and last winter was cold. This winter was extremely cold. According to me electric utility it was 5 degrees colder than last year.
It is striking how the light blue is almost white to not be noticeable.
That is on propose obviously.
Not an oversight.
Everyone that looks at map fast will think the areas in red are much bigger then blue.
And the government (and warmists in general) wonder how they constantly fail to get the ‘message’ across. Call me crazy, but I think it just might have something to do with talking total bollocks and patronising people.
I was pretty curious about this, so I went to NOAA’s data site and compared places between the data series and the map, including Hartford, CT. It’s a big country and I only have so much patience, so I’m sure someone will find anomalies that I missed. My conclusion: They misclassified New England as being near average when they should’ve put in light blue along with Pennsylvania and a bunch of New York.
But New England wasn’t nearly as cold in February, relative to the average, as the darker blue areas around the Great Lakes were. Departures from average in New England ranged from Hartford at 5.5 degrees under to Burlington, VT at 1.3 under. Similar departures were seen in places like Portland (OR), Redmond (OR), and Seattle, which were colored in light blue. That’s why I say they misclassified New England.
But in the coldest ares of the Great Lakes region, you had places like Milwaukee at 9.5 under, Chicago at 10.4 under, Wausau (WI) at 12.8 under, Minneapolis at 12.3 under, Duluth at 9.8 under, and Waterloo (IA) at 14.8 under. The closest I could find in the region to anywhere in New England was Des Moines (IA) at 5.8 under.
I think NOAA tried to simplify things, and wasn’t trying to minimize things. The most accurate presentation would’ve been a tabular format by city, but how much appetite do people other than total nerds like you and me really have for looking at a column of numbers?
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/
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.
What a coincidence… They change to “nClimDiv dataset” and it just happens to make February
not look like a cold winter?
You guys are pathetic. And you all wonder why we don’t trust climate science.
My winter average is inversely proportional to my heating bill. Highest it has ever been since I moved here in 2000. Not so much snow, but record cold for some days. Farmers here usually plant winter wheat, but most have planted rye grass or let the fields go fallow rather than lose another crop to the cold and wet like last year.
Hmm, maybe I spoke too soon. From checking some of the departures on the upside, it becomes clear that you didn’t need nearly as much of an upside from average to qualify for “much above average” status as you needed on the downside of average to qualify for “much below average” status.
So within the categories they were pretty much okay, but that map definitely exaggerates the warmth in the Southwest relative to the cold in the Midwest and the East. No question about it.
Well at Green Cross International,
they have a saying, which goes
something like this, I gather …..
When the facts don’t fit our theory,
we alter the facts to suit our theory.
At no time can you expect that we
will ever revise our theory. It was
written by Marx & Engels.
– Dr. Carmine Banner
Many more people will see the bogus
diagram, even if it were later corrected
that doesn’t matter, because people will
not see the correction, or will lose interest.
NCDC has been pulling this garbage for years. After all, they are and have been the great perpetrator of AGW!
Waterloo is maple syrup country and it might start to run this week, then stop again on Monday. For a couple of days. Kids are still pond skating in the park behind the house. February was at least 10F below normal. Many homes have 5 ft piles of snow beside the driveway. Roads suffered terribly from frost heaves.
Can dept of frost be used as a average temperature indicator? Sounds like a good metric to me. Winnipeg had frost a metre deeper than normal (3.3 ft).
This was more like the winters I remember as a young’un here in Georgia – lost eight patient days in February and the power bill comes close to setting a personal record, yet we are “average”? And they also say we are in drought conditions again despite the ground being saturated for the last several months when it was not frozen?
Recorded min and max here at the QTH in N. Central Tejas for February … too late to post the data (it was taken with pencil on paper).
Summarizing, in Feb. we had one (1) 14 degree day, nine (9) 20 degree (29.9 deg F or less) days but, five (5) 70 degree days (of 70 deg F or better as the high temp) as well and a lot in between.
We also several multi-day periods (2 and 3 days contiguous) where we saw ice/sleet storms or snow. My notes also show the first 11 days of the month with ‘overcast’ or foggy ‘sky’ conditions.
When it was bad February it seemed very very bad, and when it was good, it seemed great!
.
In Ohio it’s been the coldest since 1994 some places in Michigan coldest since the “Little Ice Age” period of the mid to late 19th century.