"About 75 Austinite weirdos held a queer dance freakout in front of the governor's mansion."
Maybe they were dancing cuz the pavement was too hot to stand still.
All-Time Warmth for February Stretches to New England
By: Bob Henson and Jeff Masters , 5:47 PM GMT on February 24, 2017
A February remarkable for its long stretches of mildness steamed onward Thursday, with more all-time records for the month continuing to tumble across wide stretches of the U.S. The apex of the record-setting warmth expanded on Thursday from the Midwest ( which we covered in our last post) into New York and New England (see below). A staggering number of daily record highs have been set in recent days, especially when juxtaposed against the sparse number of record lows this month. As of Friday morning, NOAA’s U.S. Records site had compiled 4492 daily record highs for February 2017, against a mere 29 daily record lows, for a lopsided highs-to-lows ratio of 155-to-1. With record highs expected to far outpace record lows through the end of the month, February has a very good chance of smashing the highest ratio in modern records: 44-to-1, from November 2016, as reported by longtime records tracker Guy Walton (@climateguyw) in his new Guy on Climate blog. Brian Kahn (Climate Central) puts it this way: “The U.S. is poised to set a record-setting record.”
Another astounding tidbit: the NOAA site shows 248 monthly record highs for February, but no monthly record lows at all. This is the first time that Walton recalls seeing such a skewed ratio of monthly records. It almost goes without saying that this onslaught of February records is entirely consistent with the warming of national and global climate being generated by human-produced greenhouse gases, as noted by Andrew Freedman (Mashable).
Texas and the century mark: 100°F heat on Thursday
We expect to see temperatures over 100°F in Texas in July, but not in February! Temperatures soared past the 100 degree mark at several stations in southern Texas on Thursday, flirting with the all-time U.S. temperature record for February. According to wunderground weather historian Christopher C. Burt, the Texas (and national) February heat record is either a questionable 104° at Fort Ringgold (now known as Rio Grande City) on Feb. 20, 1902 or, more likely, 103° at La Joya on Feb. 28, 2009 and also at Laredo on Feb. 20, 1986 and Feb. 27, 2011. According to the NWS in Brownsville, the official hottest temperature in the U.S. on Thursday was a 101°F reading in McAllen, which was their hottest February temperature ever recorded. A number of smaller COOP and Mesonet stations also exceeded 100°F on Thursday, with the hottest being a 107°F mark at Falcon Lake on the Mexican border. However, we asked south Texas weather expert Richard "Heatwave" Berler (@Heatwave KGNS) about this mark, and he responded: "I think that the thermometer is miscalibrated or exposed. It consistently runs higher than nearby thermometers during the daytime." Another site at Falcon Lake recorded 105°F, though, and this may be a reasonable measurement, since there were three Mexican stations near Falcon Lake that reported 103°F - 104°F at that time. Update: The NWS/Brownsville office reported in a tweet Friday afternoon that the Falcon Lake COOP station recorded 103°F on Thursday,. This ties the most reliable candidates for the national February record noted above.
Here are the 100°F readings in Texas from from February 23 as recorded in the NOAA Weather and Hazards Viewer (thanks go to Hal Needham for alerting us to this tool):
107°F at Falcon Lake RAWS
105°F at Falcon Lake APRSWXNET/CWOP
102°F in Atlee
102°F in Dilley
101°F at Zapata
100°F at Faith Ranch Airport
100°F at Cotulla
100°F - 101°F at three stations in McAllen
101°F at Laredo
The hot temperatures in southern Texas have increased wildfire risk this week, and a Red Flag Warning for dangerous fire conditions was posted on Friday for most of the region.
wunderground.com |
