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Our region's extreme run


MN Transplant
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Here's what I got so far on my webpage:

 

3 record highs broken and 2 tied in December 2015
2 record high minimums broken in December 2015
Hottest December ever
Tied for 1st, most number of 70+ degree days (5) in December (2015)
 
I'll post some analysis in January once we get the final departure number.
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  On 12/29/2015 at 4:26 PM, mattie g said:

December wasn't hot.  It was warm.

 

I use "hot" just to denote records- I like to have my page consistent. It gets sloppy when I write "hottest July" but "warmest December".

 

Honestly some of the dewpoints and highest minimums felt quite uncomfortable to me- though technically not "hot" I guess.

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  On 12/30/2015 at 5:02 PM, MN Transplant said:

Nice.  Wonder where we are on standard deviation.  Dec is a monthly with a higher variation, but it is possible that this is still the most anomalous + month in DC history.

I think the best way to look at this may be to compute the historical (1871-2015) DC average temperature for each month, and then see how much each contending month deviates from that average.  By that measure, December 2015 will be the champion, if 51.2 holds as the final average, as that would be 13.0 degrees above the historical December average of 38.2.  The current champion is January 1950, with an average of 48.0 vs the historical January average of 35.2, for an anomaly of +12.8 degrees.  On the minus side, the champion is February 1934, with an average of 24.6 vs the historical February average of 36.9, for an anomaly of -12.3 degrees.

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  On 12/30/2015 at 5:02 PM, MN Transplant said:

Nice.  Wonder where we are on standard deviation.  Dec is a monthly with a higher variation, but it is possible that this is still the most anomalous + month in DC history.

 

The most anomalous month at BWI is January 1932 at +14.5. We're not getting that high this month, but I assume Dec. 2015 will be in the top ten of positive departures of any month though.

 

Edit: you all ever look at some of the departures in 1931-32? Crazy stuff. I think Sept. 1931 - Feb. 1932 may be the most anomalous heat in modern history. We'll never beat 31/32 for hottest winter lol

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  On 12/30/2015 at 6:55 PM, PrinceFrederickWx said:

The most anomalous month at BWI is January 1932 at +14.5. We're not getting that high this month, but I assume Dec. 2015 will be in the top ten of positive departures of any month though.

 

Edit: you all ever look at some of the departures in 1931-32? Crazy stuff. I think Sept. 1931 - Feb. 1932 may be the most anomalous heat in modern history. We'll never beat 31/32 for hottest winter lol

The winter of 1931-32 is still the record-holder in DC, but I would not bet against this winter surpassing it.  December 1931 came in at 44.2 degrees in DC vs an estimated 51.2 this year at DCA. January 1932 averaged 46.8 and February 1932 averaged 42.9 in DC, and so DCA will have to average about 41.4 in January-February 2016 to surpass the 1931-32 winter average temperature.

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  On 12/30/2015 at 7:16 PM, RodneyS said:

The winter of 1931-32 is still the record-holder in DC, but I would not bet against this winter surpassing it.  December 1931 came in at 44.2 degrees in DC vs an estimated 51.2 this year at DCA. January 1932 averaged 46.8 and February 1932 averaged 42.9 in DC, and so DCA will have to average about 41.4 in January-February 2016 to surpass the 1931-32 winter average temperature.

 

I don't know about DCA but BWI, despite being 3 degrees ahead, would still have to get somewhere around a +11.5 dep. (3rd hottest) in January just to keep pace. And then Feb. '32 was also 4th hottest (+7 dep.). I guess anything's possible but it sounds like long range isn't showing warmth anywhere near December levels.

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Charlottesville has been quite toasty this December. I mean, McCormick Observatory, where mostly reliable records have been kept since the mid 1890s, is finishing up the warmest Meteorological Winter month (DJF) on record

post-1807-0-88003200-1451506310_thumb.pn

 

CHO, where records have been officially recorded since 1998, is finishing up an impressive month. 

post-1807-0-14277200-1451506309_thumb.pn

This December bests the old warmest December by at least 6°! I know the data isn't old enough to have a "climo" yet, but that's still mighty impressive.

 

In fact, we had 2 five day stretches where we broke record highs at CHO: 

post-1807-0-86886500-1451506767_thumb.pn

I mean, that's impressive in any month! Then again, records only go back to 1998, but still. Impressive nonetheless. 

 

When you combine the records of McCormick & CHO, we still beat 3 record highs this month: 

post-1807-0-41769800-1451506861_thumb.jp

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  On 12/30/2015 at 7:45 PM, PrinceFrederickWx said:

I don't know about DCA but BWI, despite being 3 degrees ahead, would still have to get somewhere around a +11.5 dep. (3rd hottest) in January just to keep pace. And then Feb. '32 was also 4th hottest (+7 dep.). I guess anything's possible but it sounds like long range isn't showing warmth anywhere near December levels.

BWI definitely has a higher hurdle than DCA to break the all-time meteorological winter temperature average in 2015-16, and it won't be easy even at DCA.  One thing I just noticed about both Baltimore and DC in 1931-32 is that March was colder than December-February.  In Baltimore, March 1932 averaged only 40.3 degrees vs a low meteorological winter monthly temperature average of 42.8 in February, and in DC the comparable numbers were 40.0 in March and 42.9 in February.  

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  On 12/30/2015 at 8:53 PM, RodneyS said:

BWI definitely has a higher hurdle than DCA to break the all-time meteorological winter temperature average in 2015-16, and it won't be easy even at DCA.  One thing I just noticed about both Baltimore and DC in 1931-32 is that March was colder than December-February.  In Baltimore, March 1932 averaged only 40.3 degrees vs a low meteorological winter monthly temperature average of 42.8 in February, and in DC the comparable numbers were 40.0 in March and 42.9 in February.  

 

Yeah, it looked like the pattern finally flipped in March- below average temps and 2.7" of snow. Had it not been for March it would've been a near-shutout.

 

I remember in another thread awhile back (I think it was in WestminsterDeathband's outlook thread) that '31/'32 still had the hottest DJFM record despite the cold March. '11/'12 was the opposite and took 2nd place mostly because of the extreme March. Getting the hottest DJFM might be more doable if we'd somehow wind up torching the whole winter but I'd have to look at it closer.

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  On 12/31/2015 at 4:23 PM, Ian said:

No trace of snow yet (through end of December) in DC. Only has happened in 01-02.

And that season DCA recorded a trace on January 6th.  Looking at the forecasts for next week, I would venture that record is about to fall.  However, DCA did manage to record 3.2 inches of measurable snow after that in January and February, which was 0.6 inches more than IAD.  :)  

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  On 12/31/2015 at 6:17 PM, PrinceFrederickWx said:

I can't believe DCA's only had a zero in Dec. only once. Its happened five times at BWI.

For some reason, in the late 1880s there was a gap in recording December snow in DC, but in all of those years at least a trace of November snow was recorded.  More recently, neither December 1972 nor December 1991 saw even a trace of snow at DCA, but traces were recorded there in November 1972 and November 1991.

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  On 12/31/2015 at 6:33 PM, Ian said:

We need to get Sep.. 1881. That one should be next. :P

September 1881 was a pretty remarkable month, even though the average temperature of 78.2 was just 8.4 degrees above the 1871-2015 average of 69.8. For one thing, it was the warmest month of the year -- the only time in DC history that September has been warmer than June, July,and August.  Second, the maximum was 104 on September 7th -- tied for the 6th highest maximum in DC history, with the top five all occurring much earlier (between July 7-August 17).  It's also interesting to note that New Year's Day 1881 featured a minimum of minus 14 -- the second lowest in DC history.  So, the 1881 DC temperature range was 118 degrees -- greatest yearly range in DC history.  

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  On 12/16/2015 at 1:56 AM, RodneyS said:

I just did the same thing with AccuWeather's DC projections and got 50.9 degrees.  That would not only shatter the December record of 45.6 degrees set in 1889 and tied in 1984, but also the all-time winter monthly record of 48.0 degrees set in January 1950.  

 

 

  On 12/16/2015 at 2:14 PM, RodneyS said:

Weather.com now has forecasts through December 30th, and they're even warmer:  Average DC temperature Dec 1-30, 2015 = 51.3 degrees.

 

Impressive performance by Weather.com and AccuWeather in mid-December to pretty much nail the final December 2015 DCA average of 51.2.  That was 11.5 degrees above normal.  IAD, at 48.7, was 12.1 degrees above normal; and BWI, at 49.0, was 12.3 degrees above normal. 

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Looks like this should go down as the third warmest year on record for DC*.

 

2012    61.5
1991    60.2
2015    60.1
1998    60
1990    60

 

 

*you know the story

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  On 1/1/2016 at 4:18 PM, Ian said:

Looks like this should go down as the third warmest year on record for DC*.

 

2012    61.5

1991    60.2

2015    60.1

1998    60

1990    60

 

 

*you know the story

When the DCA temperature sensor was replaced on August 10th, the psychro-dyne indicated that it was reading 1.7 degrees too high.  From that date forward,  the 2015 DCA-IAD average temperature differential shrunk from 5.06 degrees through August 9th to 3.45 degrees thereafter -- a reduction of 1.61 degrees.  So, I think that's a pretty good indication that the old sensor was reading about 1.7 degrees too high for many months.  If it was doing so beginning no later than New Year's Day 2015, the official yearly average temperature at DCA was inflated by a full degree by the faulty sensor.

 

However, there have very likely been past sensor issues at many sites -- including  DCA and IAD -- that received little attention or even went undetected.  For example, in 1976, the DCA-IAD annual temperature differential was 5.9 degrees, whereas in 2009 it was only 1.7 degrees.  Were the DCA and IAD sensors both accurate in those years?  So, I think the bottom line is that there was a problem with the DCA sensor for much of 2015, but attempting to adjust the numbers would open up a new can of worms.        

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  On 1/1/2016 at 5:32 PM, RodneyS said:

When the DCA temperature sensor was replaced on August 10th, the psychro-dyne indicated that it was reading 1.7 degrees too high.  From that date forward,  the 2015 DCA-IAD average temperature differential shrunk from 5.06 degrees through August 9th to 3.45 degrees thereafter -- a reduction of 1.61 degrees.  So, I think that's a pretty good indication that the old sensor was reading about 1.7 degrees too high for many months.  If it was doing so beginning no later than New Year's Day 2015, the official yearly average temperature at DCA was inflated by a full degree by the faulty sensor.

 

However, there have very likely been past sensor issues at many sites -- including  DCA and IAD -- that received little attention or even went undetected.  For example, in 1976, the DCA-IAD annual temperature differential was 5.9 degrees, whereas in 2009 it was only 1.7 degrees.  Were the DCA and IAD sensors both accurate in those years?  So, I think the bottom line is that there was a problem with the DCA sensor for much of 2015, but attempting to adjust the numbers would open up a new can of worms.        

I agree with you on that, it is what it is. Just glad that they did a 'repair'. 

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Some more stats for BWI- this was the 2nd hottest November-December period. The top ten are listed below (in degrees). We came close to beating 1931, and there's a huge gap between 2nd and 3rd. You'll see some familiar recent years in this list too:

 

1931: 50.2 

2015: 50.0 

1946: 47.4 

1994 & 1941: 47.3 

1948: 46.9

1881: 46.6

1889 & 2011: 46.5

2001: 46.4

 

 

This was also the 10th wettest December at BWI, with 5.85"

 

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