Wild Summer Records, Wildest City Weather

Chris Burt [JessePedia], Author of "Extreme Weather" has sent me this lengthy list of records set during Summer 2007 (July, August & Summer). This list appears on the "Updates" section of his website, and will be incorporated into the next version of his book.

Note that the records covered on that list are only for the 300 long-history cities that he features in the book, and note that there were more records set during that time period than during January through June this year. On average, Chris says that only about four "warmest month ever" records have been set during the summer in recent years... this summer had over 32, over 10% of the stations, a "record record" that he says dates back to 1936. Nighttime temperatures were also of note, for example Nashville's all-time overnight "high low" of 82 on August 10th. And, as I reported earlier, over 1,000 records were broken or tied during the second week of August.

William Schmitz, who also helps keep me up to date regarding Southeast records, has issued a nice Summer 2007 Spreadsheet listing "records were taken from LSR and PNS Statements released by each of the NWS Forecast Offices in the Southeast." And of course, NCDC's Records site gives access to all records, including COOP stations.

In other climate news, Forbes.com published an article in July called "America's Wildest Weather Cities." While I have not reviewed it for accuracy, it is certainly interesting, and I meant to highlight it earlier. Part of his research used Dan Baker's website which has some unusual rankings for city weather, including "Weather Variety" (most and least), record quick chills and warm-ups, and other interesting weather facts. Of interest: Chicago's not that windy and Seattle's not that rainy.