Over at Weather Underground, they are all excited about a new monthly high temperature record. Christopher Burt writes:
Wichita, Kansas Measures May Monthly High Temperature of 102°
On Sunday, May 4th, the temperature peaked at 102° at Wichita’s official NWS site Mid-Continent International Airport. Not only was this the hottest temperature ever measured during the month of May (previous record was 100° set on four different occasions) but was the earliest 100° reading on record (previous was May 9, 2011) and hottest reading so early in the season by a whole month: since June 4, 1933 when 102° was also observed. The city is off to its 2nd driest start of the year on record as well. Temperature and precipitation records for Wichita date back to 1888.
But, as I’ve pointed out many times, airports are one of the absolute worst places to measure temperature for climatic records. Not just because the airports themselves are massive heat sinks of asphalt and concrete, but also because the ASOS weather station system is known to be highly unreliable and prone to giving false high temperature readings like in Honolulu, Tucson, and more recently in Tacoma, where after fixing the ASOS temperature sensor, temperatures dropped to normal levels.
Have a look at where this thermometer is located for Wichita:
I think the asphalt pad right next to the ASOS (just north) is a nice touch, don’t you?
Location: 37.647564 -97.430027 Looking North. Image from Bing maps: http://binged.it/1mvYRyf
But look at the larger picture:
Looking North. Image from Bing maps
The location of the ASOS weather station is shown circled in red. It is surrounded on all sides by tarmac. You can bet that measurement environment didn’t exist for previous May high temperature records in Wichita.
Let’s look at the data for May 4th from KICT:
Source: http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KICT/2014/5/4/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
Note that the high temperature of 102°F was set during a period of gusty winds which look to be WNW at the time. Winds normally act to suppress mid-day high temperatures, because the mixing interrupts the boundary layer and surface heating from solar insolation. Unless of course, that wind is doing heat transport from the road, tarmac, and nearby asphalt pad to the WNW. It is also possible that the ASOS temperature sensor malfunctioned in some way, giving an erroneous high temperature, which happens with some frequency according to the links to previous events I gave earlier.
No other nearby stations set records over 100°F:
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WICHITA KS
130 AM CDT MON MAY 5 2014
...NUMEROUS RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES SET ON MAY 4TH...
WICHITA MID-CONTINENT AIRPORT REACHED 102 DEGREES AT 306 PM THIS
AFTERNOON. THIS NOT ONLY SHATTERED THE MAY 4TH RECORD OF 94 DEGREES
SET IN 1963...IT ALSO BROKE THE RECORD FOR THE EARLIEST 100 DEGREE
OR HIGHER TEMPERATURE...WHICH WAS MAY 9TH...2011.
SALINA REACHED A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 96 DEGREES TODAY. THE
PREVIOUS RECORD WAS 95 DEGREES SET BACK IN 2012.
CHANUTE REACHED A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 94 DEGREES TODAY. THE
PREVIOUS RECORD WAS 92 DEGREES SET WAY BACK IN 1909.
And, no other NOAA operated COOP station under the NWS Wichita office hit 102°F:
MAX/MIN TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION TABLE
FOR CENTRAL...SOUTH CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST KANSAS
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WICHITA KS
921 AM CDT MON MAY 5 2014
.BR ICT 0505 C DH07/TAIRZX/TAIRZN/PPDRZZ/SFDRZZ/SDIRZZ
:
: Cooperative temperature and precipitation observations
: for the previous 24 hours ending around 7 am local time
:
:....................................................................
: ID Station Obs Max Min 24HR Snow Snow
: Name Time Temp Temp Pcpn Fall Depth
:....................................................................
:
: Cooperative observations for Central Kansas
:
BNSK1: Burns : DH0700/ / / 0.00 / /
CLFK1: Claflin : DH0700/ / / 0.00 / /
CWFK1: Cottonwood Falls : DH0800/ 97 / 58 / 0.00 / /
KANK1: Kanopolis Lake : DH0600/ 97 / M / 0.00 / /
LICK1: Lincoln : DH0700/ 89 / 50 / 0.00 / /
LSBK1: Lindsborg 3E : DH0700/ / / 0.00 / /
MCPK1: McPherson : DH0700/ 94 / 51 / 0.00 / /
PEAK1: Peabody : DH0700/ / / 0.00 / /
SRLK1: Sterling : DH0700/ 99 / 54 / 0.00 / /
SYLK1: Sylvan Grove 1NE : DH0700/ / / 0.00 / /
WLSK1: Wilson Lake : DH0800/ 90 / 49 / 0.00 / /
:
: Cooperative observations for South Central Kansas
:
ANYK1: Anthony : DH0700/ 101 / 60 / 0.00 / /
AGTK1: Augusta : DH0630/ / / 0.00 / /
BNSK1: Burns : DH0700/ / / 0.00 / /
CWFK1: Cottonwood Falls : DH0800/ 97 / 58 / 0.00 / /
ELDK1: El Dorado : DH0700/ 100 / 63 / 0.00 / /
HSEK1: Haysville 3SE : DH0800/ 101 / 64 / 0.00 / /
HUTK1: Hutchinson : DH0600/ 101 / 58 / 0.00 / /
NWTK1: Newton : DH0700/ 101 / 61 / 0.00 / /
OXDK1: Oxford : DH0800/ / / 0.00 / /
PEAK1: Peabody : DH0700/ / / 0.00 / /
WLGK1: Wellington : DH0600/ 100 / 58 / 0.00 / /
WWXK1: Wichita Weather : DH0705/ / / 0.00 / 0.0 /
: Cooperative observations for Southeast Kansas
:
CFVK1: Coffeyville : DH0600/ 94 / 59 / 0.00 / /
HMBK1: Humboldt : DH0700/ 93 / 65 / 0.00 / /
INDK1: Independence : DH0700/ 96 / 38 / 0.00 / /
IOAK1: Iola Water Plant : DH0800/ 93 / 66 / 0.00 / /
MRNK1: Moran : DH0800/ / / 0.00 / /
MVLK1: Mound Valley 3 WSW: DH0800/ 93 / 61 / 0.00 / /
PARK1: Parsons : DH0800/ 91 / 61 / 0.00 / /
SDAK1: Sedan : DH1300/ 98 / 65 / 0.00 / /
YATK1: Yates Center : DH0700/ 95 / 64 / 0.00 / /
:
.END
It seems to me that this record is suspect.
=================
[UPDATE by Willis] This post of Anthony’s inspired me to do some sleuthing. First, the history of the station is here. It reveals that the weather station moved from downtown Wichita to one airport in 1940, and then to its current airport in 1953. It switched to the ASOS automated system in 1992.
And an inordinate amount of digging located a 1956 photo of the airport, not long after the weather station moved there.
In comparison with the current aerial photo, we see that a third runway has been been added. You can also see that the airport in 1956 was surrounded by miles of farmland on all sides … and how it has suburbs all around it now.
Regards,
w.
Bruce G Wilkins says:
“Not only do you have the heat sink of cement, etc. the jets taking off have a very high egt, exhaust gas temperture, to heat the area up. As an example the max egt of a 747-400 at take off is 650 degrees C. That is 1202 F. That will warm the area up nicely!”
This, taken together with Mosh’s comment that the gases cool to ‘ambient’ are relevant. The ‘ambient’ is a parcel of ambient air that has been heated by the tarmac and the engines. If one wants proof that airports are hotter than the surrounding environment, just look for rural stations nearby. This is not turbofan-science.
I see Anthony beat me to it.
When clear sky, dry air, and falling/stalled temp trends are the anomoly pattern, I would expect high daytime temps, even records, during the Spring/Summer/Fall, and cold nights through out, even record cold nights. I don’t give much pause to a daytime high, verified or not, when the nights are rather cold. This is the pattern of “dust bowl” La Nina type conditions that result in stalled or cooling weather pattern variations. Has nothing whatsoever to do with anthropogenic warming.
That doesn’t show everything near the thermometer.
To the north is the main airport
A little to the northwest is the new terminal under construction
To the northeast is a bunch of general aviation buildings
To the southeast is the massive Cessna plant
To the south and southwest is another cluster of industrial buildings
The only direction where there’s nothing is the large nature preserve directly to the west
Heck, the resultant UHI from the north for example is also the reason why we didn’t break the record for lowest ever temperature reading for the month of March (which is about -2).
Our little thermometer attached to our house meanwhile said 98, but it’s a little shaded and is usually a degree or two on the cool side on hot days.
La Nada probably dominated much of the time during the ‘dust bowl’ with La Niña. Causing the jet stream to snake up and down and with blocking sometimes getting stuck pattern. My amateur opinion.
We should note that at the time Wichita recorded the 102 F, at 15:53, Southwest winds were howling at 29 mph, with gusts to 37 mph.
There were a few 18,000 and 25,000 feet clouds.
http://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KICT.html
This was blowing an impressive tongue of heat in that was uniformly distributed in that area and lessening the effect that would occur to a poorly located thermometer with light or calm winds.
I agree that this thermometer could be placed in a better place but under the conditions present yesterday, it was pretty representative of the area.
I forecast for regions, in this case the Hard Red Winter wheat belt and my forecast started adding the number 100 for this region on Tuesday.
Also, much of the HRW crop in the area upstream, where the surface winds were blowing from is about dead from:
1. WInterkill this past Winter as well as from wild fluctuations in temperatures above and below freezing. Slugs of warmth from the Southwest US would come in for a day or two, then be followed by an Arctic blast. This while the crop was still dormant
2. There was little or no snow cover for protection from this when the crop was dormant
3. A couple of spring freezes, one in particular around a month ago with temps in the low 20’s while the wheat was well jointed and vulnerable
4. Numerous very high wind episodes(50 mph+ at times), sometime lasting days, featuring widespread blowing dust and recently, heat.
So the bone dry and mostly bare soils, vs having lush green wheat upstream, where this blast of heat was coming from may have added something like 5-8 degrees F to daytime highs by itself.
No denying it was impressive heat, combined with impressive wind. I shouldn’t have to add that this is weather and nothing shocking but will anyway.
More than half the HRW crop in the TX/OK will be zero yield with close to half in KS/CO that way.
In Eastern KS the HRW is in great shape, this heat did not hurt it.
The rest of the Winter wheat(SRW) crop is OK but very cold temps over Winter took some yield potential away from a crop that had perfect planting conditions last Fall and went dormant in outstanding shape.
This heat has been blowing farther northeast(over wet soils) for over 500+ miles and getting modified but outside of the S.Plains, corn and soybean farmers are welcoming it to dry out and warm up soils that were too wet and cold until recently. They are catching up on corn planting
right now.
The farmers in the N.Plains and Upper Midwest are way behind in planting progress right now (Spring wheat/corn/oats) because the air and soils are even colder. Almost none of the corn and wheat has been planted in ND/MN. They would celebrate if record highs were set(impossible with this set up) with their cold pattern lasting over 6 months now. Unfortunately for them, it will stay too wet and cold, which may start effecting yield potential on the crop not planted within the next few weeks(Summer weather counts most).
I would not be surprised to see some switch to soybeans if we close out May this way.
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/CropProg/CropProg-05-05-2014.txt
Mosher,
As Anthony also pointed out, could you answer the question I asked? And, another, why do you NEVER answer the questions I ask???
Mosher’s weasel words tell us all we need to know about CAGW, makes it so simple. Scientists never ever do it, mock and shun the so-called “Climate Scientists” who even try it once, loser…
The ASOS at McConnell Air Force Base (KIAB) on the east side of Wichita also reported a max temperature of 102 F. I looked on google maps, but could not determine where the KIAB ASOS is located.
Just 5 days earlier the max temperature had been 52 F, so the 102 F represented a 50 degree warm up over just 5 days in Wichita.
Date Tmin Tmax
29 Apr 42 52
30 Apr 39 61
1 May 37 66
2 May 35 74
3 May 42 92
4 May 58 102
The key word in that report is “dry”. I looked down at my phone yesterday afternoon and it was 100F with a dew point of 24 in Wichita. It is rare to be this dry on May 5th, the peak of tornado season. It’s rarely even that dry in August. Is it any wonder why the previous record was in 1933? El Nino, where you at.
I just discovered four Oklahoma mesonet sites near the Kansas border south and west of Wichita reported 103 F yesterday, so now the 102 at two ASOS sites in Wichita does not seem unreasonable:
http://climate.ok.gov/index.php/climate/map/yesterdays_high_temperatures/oklahoma_south-central_u.s
The Oklahoma mesonet sites are generally located in rural locations.
True, but they do make for terrific climactic records.
I’m betting Mosh is wrong on this one. Here’s what the Naval Aviation publishers say here:
High temperatures “several hundred feet” from the tailpipe sure sounds like more than the length of an airplane.
Finally, I’ve been hit by a jet blast from a commercial airplane when I’ve been a couple hundred feet from a big jet … it was definitely warm.
w.
Steven Mosher says:
May 5, 2014 at 3:43 pm
before you compare absolutes you have to correct for differences in station altitude.”
But it is perfectly acceptable to compare averages with absolutes?
Mike Maguire says:
May 5, 2014 at 7:37 pm
What an interesting post. Thank you for your forecast.
Mosh’ says: “The heat from a jet engine at FULL POWER decreases to the ambient air temperature within less than the length of the aircraft.”
Heat doesn’t decrease ( you probably meant temperature ). The heat just mixes, contributing to the ambient air temperature.
Problem with the jet engine is, heat is a radiation. And heat, or better said, temperature also follows the inverse square law.
If you don’t believe me, turn on your oven, hold your bum against it. Then move away one meter. Do it again. Repeat that several times. You will see that the “heat radiation” your bum feels will decrease with distance. Or do it with a burning candle and your hand. Same result.
That’s not even taking into account the temperature exchange between the hot air and the cooler air, following the laws of thermodynamics. And let’s not even start on wind.
So I seriously doubt that the engines have any influence.
The masses of concrete, however, yes. I just need to look out my window in summer. When I moved to where I live now, it was almost rural outside. There were even crop yielding fields, right under my window. Now, 20 years later, there’s a lot of concrete, the fields are gone, the local automobile association built a large building, parking lot and even a parking garage. Two additional roads were built and two large apartment buildings as well. So in summer there is now a lot more material that can be heated up by day, which then takes longer to cool off by night. Of course my window thermometer reflects this easily. It doesn’t mean that “OMG! AGW! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” It just means that the local area has been changed massively.
The nearest USHCN sites to Wichita are El Dorado and Anthony, only 34 and 48 miles away respectively.
The highest May temps were set in 1913 at both sites.(In the case of Anthony, it was 5F higher than this year.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/record-temperatures-at-airports/
“Edohiguma says:
May 6, 2014 at 1:58 am”
So the exhaust gasses from the engines which would be at ~850C would have no effect on local air termerature conditions nor on the concerete and buildings around the device to measure temperature at that location?
The effects of artificial heating can be immense. During WW2, when there was no reliable ILS(Instrument Landing System) in operation on British aerodromes, some of these aerodromes got a special equuipment that consisted of long trenches on each side of the Rwy that were filled with petrol and set on fire. During a foggy night this heat, when set free, was sufficient to drive away the fog temporarily, so that a/c crews could bring down their bird safely without having to pancake it somewhere in the neighborhood.
ASOS seems to have two major problems: no plausibility check of the data by the help of a second measuring unit and p*ssed poor maintenance. It’s an absolute no-go to wait until a system breaks down (and that breakdown being discovered just by chance) than replacing units before MTBF is exceeded. It’s a matter of SAFETY. And ASOS must not be used for meteorological obervations. It may be useful for air traffic, but I think it’s data are useless for long-time meteorological data-collection.
The hottest I have ever been in my life was on the tarmac at an airport (Travis AFB, CA). >120° F in the shade, which was a half mile away. I was working inside a C-124 unloading floor-loaded A/C engines. The plane/solar oven had been collecting solar energy all morning and half the afternoon. The interior was >140° F.
And Topeka Ks , not all that far away, is forecast to finally reach 90 deg. today, for the first time this year , per WIBW ch 13 news….
Patrick says:
May 5, 2014 at 11:14 pm
Steven Mosher says:
May 5, 2014 at 3:43 pm
before you compare absolutes you have to correct for differences in station altitude.”
But it is perfectly acceptable to compare averages with absolutes?
—
S.M. is entirely wrong here. You don’t need any altitude correction to compare absolute temperatures. Would 50 deg F in Denver would feel different than 50 deg F in New York City? Of course not (as anyone with some modest background in heat transfer would know).
Trouble is Anthony, you’ve shown us the photos of the shockingly awful, some bastard should be fired, p*ss poor horror show installations. Then we look at that one and think “Could be worse…”……….:-)