"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."

-Jonas Salk

Monday, May 2, 2011

Monthly Record Cold Day?

I think today may end up with the lowest high temperature recorded in Austin in May. (Previously 56 F)

It is 4 PM on May 2 and conditions are currently 53 degrees and (!) drizzling. It's substantially warmer in Edmonton than in Austin.

This cold outburst is widespread. They had a freeze last night in Dalhart, which admittedly is barely in Texas.

Does this count as "global warming"? Hell no. Should it count as climate change?

==
76

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

These are Black Swans of course!

Steve Scolnik said...

It's not a record for the month, although possibly for the date. Austin/Mabry, whose records extend back to 1898, had a max of 52 on the 1st in 1907 and on the 6th in 1917. It must have been a heckuva year in 1907, since 5 other low maxes were set, including 4 in a row.

Here's a factoid to consider: The average year of lowest max in May is 1938.4, and the average year of highest min is 1974.9.

The averages don't even tell the whole story, however: There have only been 4 low maxes in the last 40 years (and 3 of those were in 1983), but 14 high mins just since 2000.

Aaron said...

It is just a grab for the SF (coldest winter was a summer in SF) tourist business. However, last summer, here in SF we had days when we were cooler than Nuuk, Greenland. So you'al gona have to come up with a better brag.

However, with all the weird weather from global warming, new weird weather brags are no problem.

Anyone want to bet on whether our friends in Russia and Pakistan are going to have a whole new round of stories to tell next fall?

King of the Road said...

This comment is off the topic of your post but refers to one of your shared items.

With respect to Mr. Kunstler, a careful reading of my post about him will reveal that I agree with much of what he says. It's only that he says it so often and so obnoxiously that's caused me to stop reading him. But I always check out his Eyesore of the Month (May's is not up yet) even though I'm not sure who died and made him de facto architectural quality monitor for the U.S.

David B. Benson said...

One of the coldest springs on record here in the inland Pacific Northwest. Precipitation for the water year is 127% of the long term average.

No matter how one dices it, completely normal.

Steve Scolnik said...

Looks like the high will go down as 54, although there are still 2 hours to go (local standard time).

Steve Scolnik said...

Yes, it would be a record for Austin/Bergstrom, but records there only go back to 1943.

Andrew said...

Of course, here in the UK, we have just had the warmest April on record (I think that the CET record went). There has been barely any noticeable rain for ages.