April/May NOT second coldest next to 1975

[cloneranger]

I'm guess that many of you saw the story at the beginning on this month that claimed that the March/April period of this year was the second coldest on record for the Nation, with 1975 the only year that was colder.

 

NCDC data that came out yesterday showed that the March/April period for the Nation was just the 33rd coldest.

 

What gives?

 

It certainly bothered me that I could never independently verify the early May story.

[bluewave]

That was from an incorrect headline on the Drudgereport . You can see how how March and 

April of 1996 finished colder.

 

https://twitter.com/DRUDGE_REPORT/status/328234477740519425

 

 

[cloneranger]

Thanks for the reply but not sure I understand; here is the original story:

 

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/second-coldest-start-to-spring-in-us-history/

[HurricaneFrances04]

Thanks for the reply but not sure I understand; here is the original story:

 

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/second-coldest-start-to-spring-in-us-history/

 

Does that include Alaska and Hawaii, which the graph in the OP does not?

[MN Transplant]

Thanks for the reply but not sure I understand; here is the original story:

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/second-coldest-start-to-spring-in-us-history/

Goddard is a well-known climate change skeptic, and obviously has strong partisan opinions based on the other topics on his blog. He tends to believe that the adjustments made to the raw climate data amount to scientific fraud from NOAA, so he tries to create a raw temperature series, ignoring changes in instrument type/location/etc. You can draw your own conclusions about that, but it certainly makes him popular on one side of the political spectrum, and that's how the story eventually ended up on Drudge.