Weather Watcher Stanley Rossen and the Heat of 8/8/07

Last week was hot and I devote the rest of this entry to Stanley Rossen, an avid weather watcher. This is his research into the record heat of last week. Thanks Stanley!



Hello all (if you haven't melted), While stuck in my "office" for much of the post obs. overnight and much of the day yesterday, I was able to research temperature records for my home station - Glenmont (1NNE),Md., and the three major Airport stations: DCA, IAD, & BWI from Wed. 8/8. I did not have all the material with me and the time to do the detailed research of Baltimore City records, although it is possible that both the Max. and min. temps. set August records by 1°F.

I am not discussing any daily records in this e-mail as all the stations listed above set both high Max. and high min. records for the date. What I am discussing below the charts are monthly and all-time records. All the publicity concerning the temps for the day were for the high temps. But with the possible exception mentioned above, none of the major Airports even tied a monthly Max. temp. record. DCA didn't set or tie an August min. temp.or daily aver. temp. either. The suburban Airports did.

As may be obvious, I don't pay any attention to the official Baltimore temperature records as the only similarity in between the City Office and BWI (the City data before 7/23/50 is combined with BWI data from that date on to form the records) is that they are both in Maryland. It makes just as much sense to me to combine Salisbury and Oakland records or even Miami, FL and Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN records. City and suburban temperatures do not follow the same patterns or characteristics.

From my more than 30 years of research I believe that the published Custom House and Science Center temperatures are totally legitimate and should be used with the pre-BWI data to form a long term City record data set and that the BWI data should stand separately. That is how I treat those station's records. Unlike Baltimore, National Airport was close enough to Washington's City Office to be combined.

I am listing below all the Maximum, minimum, and daily Average temps. (Max/min/Aver) that I have collected for 8/8/07. The first data set is from the 14 METAR stations within 50 miles of Washington that I access daily. The second set is a combination of official and unofficial stations that I have collected. This includes data from some of your own home stations. If you find any errors, please let me know. Also feel free to forward this e-mail to anyone else who might be interested.

METARS
KADW Andrews AFB, MD 100°/79°/89.5°
KBWI Balt.-Wash. Int. AP, MD 102°/80°/91.0°
KCGS College Park, MD AP 100°/81°/90.5°
KDAA Ft. Belvoir, VA 102°/75°/88.5°
KDCA Wash. National AP, DC 102°/80°/91.0°
KDMH MD Science Center (Balt.), MD 106°/85°/95.5°
KFDK Frederick, MD AP 97°/75°/86.0°
KFME Tipton AP (Ft. Meade), MD 102°/75°/88.5°
KHEF Manassas, VA AP 102°/73°/87.5°
KIAD Wash.-Dulles Int. AP, VA 101°/79°/90.0°
KJYO Leesburg, VA AP 100°/79°/89.5°
KMTN Martin Field (Middle River), MD 102°/82°/92.0°
KNAK Naval Acad. (Annapolis), MD 100°/81°/90.5°
KNYG Quantico, VA 104°/78°/91.0°

OTHERS
Annandale, VA 99°/78°/88.5°
Beltsville USDA Sta.#2, MD 102°/77°/89.5°
Beltsville USDA Sta.#5, MD 101°/75°/88.0°
Clarksburg (2ENE), MD 97°/78°/87.5°
Dalecarlia Reservoir, DC 104°/73°/88.5°
Damascus, MD 96°/73°/84.5°
Gaithersburg (2WNW), MD 98°/78°/88.0°
Glenmont (1NNE), MD 101°/77°/89.0°
Millers (4NE), MD 95°/75°/85.0°
Montgomery Village, MD 101°/81°/91.0°
National Arboretum, DC 101°/79°/90.0°
Oxon Hill, MD 102°/80°/91.0°
Pasadena (3SW), MD 102°/80°/91.0°
Vienna-Dunn Loring, VA 95°/76°/85.5°

At Dulles AP (daily records began late in the evening of 11/16/62), both the min. temp. of 79° and the daily aver. temp. of 90.0°easily broke all-time records. The old all-time record daily average temp. was also the old August record. That was 88.5° (102°/75°) set on8/15/88. The previous record for highest min. temp. did not occur in August. The old August record was 76° from 8/13/88, 8/5/89, & 8/23/02. The old all-time record was 77° on 7/21/87 & 9/3/93.

BWI (records began 7/23/50) also broke its station record for daily average temp. with its 91.0° figure. That edged the old record of 90.5° (102°/79°) from 7/16/95. The previous August record of 89.0°occurred three times and all of them were last year: 8/1/06 (100°/78°),8/2/06 (99°/79°), & 8/3/06 (100°/78°). The old August record for highest min. temp. was also last year's 79° on 8/2/06. This was only the third time that BWI has held an 80° min. temp. for a full 24 hour day. The other two times were on 6/26/52 & 7/22/72.

I have noticed that there have been a number of complaints about the Frederick Max. temps. in recent years. I have no idea about how and where the instruments are exposed at the Airport. What I have noticed, as you see above, is that they have not been consistently high during the summer months; and that it is more common during the "off" months. At my home suburban valley location with my standard mercury-in-glass maximum thermometer and alcohol-in-glass minimum thermometer on a Townsend support in my Cotton-region shelter, I have had higher max. temps. than the three major Airports with some frequency during Spring months. This does not hold during the summer and fall here.

At my home here 1 mile NNE of the adjacent Glenmont Police and Fire Stations (I'm equidistant from three different Post Offices) where daily records began on 6/26/77, my 101° Max. temp. was the first reading to reach the Century mark (and 9th time overall) since I set my all-time record of 103° on 7/31/99. It ties 7/16/88, 8/15/88, 8/16/97, & 7/6/99 for the second hottest day here (which obviously includes tying my August heat record). The only other dates to reach 100° here were 7/16/80,8/4/95, & 7/23/91. The min. temp. of 77° tied 7/19/91, 9/3/93, & 8/3/06for warmest 24-hour minimum ever recorded here. By the way, I take my daily observations at 12:00 Midnight EST (0500Z) year round. That means it's at 1:00 A.M. EDT when we're on Daylight Time.

What these two records combined means is that my daily aver. temp. of 89.0° was the warmest on record here. The record it broke was a short lived one as it was from 8/3/06: 88.0° (99°/77°). I hope that you find all this information enlightening.

Stanley Rossen

P.S. Some of the individual station data that I used above can be found at the following websites:
Annandale: http://www.annandaleweather.com/
Beltsville: http://www.ba.ars.usda.gov/weather/ba-weather.html
Clarksburg: http://www.weather4caster.com/
Montgomery Village: http://mvweather.net/
Pasadena: http://www.thunderheadtech.com/
I post my own climate data under "Comments" at the following website:http://www.coolwx.com/userobs/ .