beavis1729 Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 While we're in a boring weather period before the cold season gets underway, I thought it would be interesting to list out the temperature records at ORD that are easiest and most difficult to break. I'm only focusing on the cold & low-solar season, NDJF. Feel free to add other locations too. I may add low max and high min records later. A more detailed statistical analysis would probably look at all daily temps, to calculate the standard deviation assuming a normal distribution...then look at departures on a z-score (# of SD) basis. That way, it would account for the fact that a -20F daily departure in summer is probably equivalent to a -35F daily departure in winter...as winter temps are more variable. But a simpler way of doing this is to just see which records seem out of place relative to surrounding days and/or time of year. What I found interesting is that there doesn't really seem to be a correlation between the easiest records to break vs. how old the record is. For example, some of the easiest records to break are from the 1800s. It just seems to be a coincidence that certain days just haven't had extreme cold or heat...probably a feature of small sample size. Even with records going back to 1870, only 150 max/min observations exist for a given day at ORD. Also, the most difficult record low temps to break are mainly focused on the absolute coldest temps on records, not so much time of year. This is due to UHI worsening over time. Regardless of early-season or late-season, I think the all-time low temp of -27 on 1/20/1985 is almost impossible to break. We saw what happened on January 30-31, 2019... ORD - daily MAX temp records 10 easiest to break (1) 58 on 2/16/1921 (2) 52 on 2/2/2020 (3) 55 on 1/30/1988 (4) 56 on 1/5/1890 (5) 57 on 12/22/1957 - only December day with a record high lower than 60 (6) 61 on 12/11/1949 (7) 70 on 11/12/1949 (8) 62 on 2/28/2016 (9) 60 on 12/17/1977 (10) 60 on 12/16/1984 10 most difficult to break (1) 67 on 1/25/1950 (2) 69 on 12/28/1984 (3) 68 on 12/31/1875 (4) 70 on 2/11/1999 (5) 78 on 11/14/1971 (6) 75 on 11/19/1930 (7) 71 on 12/3/1970 (8) 65 on 1/1/1876 (9) 65 on 1/7/2008 (10) 75 on 2/27/1976 ORD - daily MIN temp records 10 easiest to break (1) -9 on 1/13/1929 - only January day with a record low higher than -10 (2) -10 on 1/27/1955 (3) 21 on 11/1/1879 (4) 19 on 11/6/1991 (5) 4 on 12/5/2005 (6) -10 on 2/7/1875 (7) -7 on 12/30/1909 (8) 14 on 11/14/1916 (9) -7 on 12/17/1951 (10) -1 on 2/26/1963 10 most difficult to break (1) -25 on 12/24/1983 (2) -27 on 1/20/1985 (3) -26 on 1/10/1982 (4) -25 on 1/16/1982 (5) -1 on 11/23/1950 (6) -2 on 11/24/1950 (7) -14 on 12/9/1876 (8) 7 on 11/12/2019 (9) 3 on 11/17/1959 (10) -23 on 1/30/2019 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madwx Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 This is fun, lets do it for MSN Record High 10 Easiest to Break 51 on February 13 50 on December 26 50 on December 27 64 on November 12 47 on February 1 47 on January 30 47 on January 19 48 on January 14 50 on February 9 50 on February 7 10 Hardest to break 62 on December 28 76 on November 7 68 on February 22 62 on December 20 58 on January 6 60 on December 24 57 on January 3 63 on February 12 63 on February 15 77 on November 1 Record Lows 10 Easiest to Break -10 December 12 -13 February 14 -14 February 15 -16 January 1 -19 January 27 -9 February 26 -19 February 6 -16 December 30 -16 December 31 -11 December 6 10 Hardest to Break -37 January 30 -20 February 28 -14 November 28 -28 December 24 -26 December 27 -22 December 9 -11 November 29 0 November 5 1 November 7 -7 November 21 **Bonus** -29 March 1 (which is an amazing 15 degrees colder than any other record low in the month of March. Must have been some radiational cooling) 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 1 hour ago, beavis1729 said: While we're in a boring weather period before the cold season gets underway, I thought it would be interesting to list out the temperature records at ORD that are easiest and most difficult to break. I'm only focusing on the cold & low-solar season, NDJF. Feel free to add other locations too. I may add low max and high min records later. A more detailed statistical analysis would probably look at all daily temps, to calculate the standard deviation assuming a normal distribution...then look at departures on a z-score (# of SD) basis. That way, it would account for the fact that a -20F daily departure in summer is probably equivalent to a -35F daily departure in winter...as winter temps are more variable. But a simpler way of doing this is to just see which records seem out of place relative to surrounding days and/or time of year. What I found interesting is that there doesn't really seem to be a correlation between the easiest records to break vs. how old the record is. For example, some of the easiest records to break are from the 1800s. It just seems to be a coincidence that certain days just haven't had extreme cold or heat...probably a feature of small sample size. Even with records going back to 1870, only 150 max/min observations exist for a given day at ORD. Also, the most difficult record low temps to break are mainly focused on the absolute coldest temps on records, not so much time of year. This is due to UHI worsening over time. Regardless of early-season or late-season, I think the all-time low temp of -27 on 1/20/1985 is almost impossible to break. We saw what happened on January 30-31, 2019... ORD - daily MAX temp records 10 easiest to break (1) 58 on 2/16/1921 (2) 52 on 2/2/2020 (3) 55 on 1/30/1988 (4) 56 on 1/5/1890 (5) 57 on 12/22/1957 - only December day with a record high lower than 60 (6) 61 on 12/11/1949 (7) 70 on 11/12/1949 (8) 62 on 2/28/2016 (9) 60 on 12/17/1977 (10) 60 on 12/16/1984 10 most difficult to break (1) 67 on 1/25/1950 (2) 69 on 12/28/1984 (3) 68 on 12/31/1875 (4) 70 on 2/11/1999 (5) 78 on 11/14/1971 (6) 75 on 11/19/1930 (7) 71 on 12/3/1970 (8) 65 on 1/1/1876 (9) 65 on 1/7/2008 (10) 75 on 2/27/1976 ORD - daily MIN temp records 10 easiest to break (1) -9 on 1/13/1929 - only January day with a record low higher than -10 (2) -10 on 1/27/1955 (3) 21 on 11/1/1879 (4) 19 on 11/6/1991 (5) 4 on 12/5/2005 (6) -10 on 2/7/1875 (7) -7 on 12/30/1909 (8) 14 on 11/14/1916 (9) -7 on 12/17/1951 (10) -1 on 2/26/1963 10 most difficult to break (1) -27 on 1/20/1985 (2) -25 on 12/24/1983 (3) -26 on 1/10/1982 (4) -25 on 1/16/1982 (5) -1 on 11/23/1950 (6) -2 on 11/24/1950 (7) -14 on 12/9/1876 (8) 7 on 11/12/2019 (9) 3 on 11/17/1959 (10) -6 on 12/1/1893 Nice list. I would probably add the -23 on 1/30/2019 to the hardest to break list. It stands out quite a bit when looking at surrounding days on the calendar. And I think you could make a case that it's harder to break -25 on 12/24/1983 than -27 on 1/20/1985 due to when the coldest temps tend to occur relative to climo, but both are undoubtedly very difficult. After watching what happened in the late January 2019 arctic outbreak, I am more convinced than ever that the all-time record would have to be broken via cold air advection and not radiational cooling driven. The UHI just won't allow it. It would take a truly balls cold airmass aloft to be able to break it though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beavis1729 Posted October 12, 2020 Author Share Posted October 12, 2020 On 10/12/2020 at 2:22 PM, Hoosier said: Nice list. I would probably add the -23 on 1/30/2019 to the hardest to break list. It stands out quite a bit when looking at surrounding days on the calendar. And I think you could make a case that it's harder to break -25 on 12/24/1983 than -27 on 1/20/1985 due to when the coldest temps tend to occur relative to climo, but both are undoubtedly very difficult. After watching what happened in the late January 2019 arctic outbreak, I am more convinced than ever that the all-time record would have to be broken via cold air advection and not radiational cooling driven. The UHI just won't allow it. It would take a truly balls cold airmass aloft to be able to break it though... Yeah, I thought about the -25 and -27. The one thing that 12/24/1983 had going for it was that it's nearly the shortest day of the year. But I agree a case could be made for it being #1 on the list. EDIT: I made a couple updates to the ORD list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beavis1729 Posted October 13, 2020 Author Share Posted October 13, 2020 Interesting data for MSN...hard to believe the -37 on 1/30/1951. Their 2nd coldest temp on record is "only" -30 on 1/15/1963. A few days have come close in the (somewhat) modern era...such as -29 on 2/3/1996; -28 on 1/16/1979 & 2/1/1985; -27 on 1/20/1994; -26 on 1/31/2019. This makes the -29 on 3/1/1962 even more impressive. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michsnowfreak Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 I love this thread idea. Everytime I see a record thats easy/hard to break i take notice, but never looked up what were the biggies. Detroit Records go to 1874. Of course a little judgment goes into the numbers, but here we go. DTW - daily MAX temp records 10 easiest to break (1) 51 on 2/5/1993 (2) 53 on 2/2/2020 (3) 54 on 12/18/1939 (4) 56 on 12/17/1984 (5) 54 on 2/1/1933 (6) 62 on 11/24/2001 (7) 63 on 11/25/2001 (8) 55 on 1/9/1949 (9) 55 on 1/16/1953 10) 57 on 2/14/1918 10 most difficult to break (1) 67 on 1/25/1950 (2) 81 on 11/1/1950 (3) 70 on 2/11/1999 (4) 66 on 1/11/1890 (5) 69 on 12/6/1998 (6) 75 on 11/9/1999 (7) 68 on 12/3/1982 (8) 67 on 12/2/1982 (9) 67 on 12/5/2001 (10) 64 on 1/26/1944 DTW - daily MIN temp records 10 easiest to break (1) 8 on 12/1/1930 (2) 7 on 12/6/1885 (3) -6 on 1/27/1936 (4) -7 on 1/29/1985 (5) -7 on 2/1/1971 (6) 0 on 12/20/1942 (7) 6 on 12/5/1974 (8) -2 on 2/21/1918 (9) -4 on 12/27/2017 (10) -4 on 12/28/1924 10 most difficult to break (1) -20 on 2/9/1875 (2) -21 on 1/21/1984 (3) -20 on 1/19/1994 (4) 0 on 11/22/1880 (5) 7 on 11/13/2019 (6) -16 on 2/5/1918 (7) -18 on 1/18/1976 (8) -13 on 2/20/2015 (9) -16 on 1/12/1918 (10) -16 on 1/25/1897 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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