September 2024 General Discussion

[TheClimateChanger]

Looks like some places may record their most 70+ days on record this year. With 91 days remaining in the year, Detroit is just one day behind the annual record of 159, set in 2021 & 2012.

[TheClimateChanger]

2 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Looks like some places may record their most 70+ days on record this year. With 91 days remaining in the year, Detroit is just one day behind the annual record of 159, set in 2021 & 2012.

We can see in the late 19th century, turn of the 20th century, it was not uncommon at all to see fewer than 115 such days in an entire calendar year at Detroit.

If current trends persist, we will likely see years with 180-200 days of 70+ highs later this century. Really showcasing how as @A-L-E-K likes to say, this is the best climo.

[TheClimateChanger]

I was going to call Detroit the new San Diego, but man, doing the same analysis at San Diego is just shocking. Like literally unreal.

It went from not being too uncommon to see fewer than 100 days of 70+:

To now increasingly pushing 250 such days:

Wild stuff. And people think there's no variability in San Diego. Look 70+ days can range from 80 to 256. At Detroit, the historic range is 104 to 159 [for the time being]. Also, the San Diego Airport is right on the water, so it's not a case of moving coastal readings to an inland location, which might be a plausible explanation for such a stark change in the behavior of 70+ days. What I think is going on is a lot of days that were previously in the mid to upper 60s are now low to mid 70s.

[Brian D]

1 hour ago, TheClimateChanger said:

How does that rank among all months? Wonder if some locations had their driest month ever. I think Cedar Rapids had no measurable precipitation, so that clearly would at least tie driest month ever.

This is what I found for my town TH. Looks like it tied 5th driest month in the record since 1894.

Jan 1894/Nov 1904/Dec 1905 0.00"
Jan 1981 0.02"
Nov 1916/1917/March 1960 0.04"
Dec 1913 0.05"
Nov 1912/Dec 1979/Sept 2024 0.06"

[OrdIowPitMsp]

49 minutes ago, Brian D said:

This is what I found for my town TH. Looks like it tied 5th driest month in the record since 1894.

Jan 1894/Nov 1904/Dec 1905 0.00"
Jan 1981 0.02"
Nov 1916/1917/March 1960 0.04"
Dec 1913 0.05"
Nov 1912/Dec 1979/Sept 2024 0.06"

What I think is significant and makes September 2024 really stand out, is all the other months were during the cold season when plant life was dormant.