By Peter McGurk, Icecap member and Senior Meteorologist, WSI

Expanding on the work of Bruce Hall in the “Hall of Fame” blog, I took a look at how the state temperature extremes compared when stratifying the data by whether or not the record was set during the first half of the last century (1900-1949) or during the second half of the last century (1950-1999).

Looking at extreme state maximum temperatures, there were 298 recorded during the years from 1900 to 1949 while only 245 records were set during the period from 1950 to 1999. This in spite of the bias, noted by Hall, of listing only the most recent record location in the event of a tie. For extreme min temperatures, the data shows almost the exact opposite. Only 246 extreme record state low temperatures during the period from 1900-1949 while 301 extreme low state records were set during the period from 1950 to 1999.

As far as extreme maxes are concerned, not only is the overall average greater during the first half of the last century, but 2/3 of the monthly averages are also greater during the period 1900-1949. Only for the months of March, June, October and December were they warmer during the period 1950-1999. For the extreme mins, the first half of the 1900s was decidedly colder than the second half, in spite of the fact that the majority of the record mins occurred during the period 1950-1999. Only 1/3 of the months, May, June and July were the monthly averages cooler during the period 1950-1999.

I suspect that if we were truly headed for a Global Meltdown, that this data would vastly different than it is currently. Namely, we would be seeing many more record state maxes occurring more frequently during the recent past that the distant past. Additionally, we should not be seeing more state record extreme mins set during the second half of the past century.

See Pete’s full data analysis and charts here.