Master Betty wrote:
....
Goodpoint.

I've been here 6 years and, I always thought it was hot here, but last
summer took the prize.

From what I've heard it was the hottest in "recorded" history. Some
time in the 1800s they started record keeping. ...

So, similar to most places west of the Mississippi. Records only go
back a couple-hundred years in general out here. From that one can say
that the likelihood of a new record high (or low) is roughly 1/2% on any
given day--not all that unlikely.

OTOH, we're not that all that far away and we had only a couple of days
all the past summer over 100F--quite mild by our normals.

This area went thru a very wet spell in the early part of the 1900s when
it was being first broken out for farming. What they didn't know at the
time was that that was an extreme period for rainfall and only 25-30
years later they were in the heart of the 30s' drought accompanied w/
very hot summers and lots of wind. That lasted for quite a number of
years before another cycle. We suffered thru another period in the
early 50s; grandfather's records at the house show that two consecutive
years during that time were drier for us, specifically, than any year
during the Dust Bowl years. We've continued on that roughly 20-year
cycle since.

Certainly NW KS and some of W TX and the panhandles have been in a
stretch recently. But, those areas are generally even drier normally
than we and the extremes tend to be more so there as well even though
all "normal" can be said of here is that it is the meaning of a
statistical estimator. We can be 60s or even 70s one day ahead of the
next front that may bring snow and 0F. Within the week it's often
easily back to the 40s/50s. Right now we've had a couple reasonably
warm days as the downslope winds give rise to adiabatic heating ahead of
the approaching "blue norther" that's going to put us into the below
zero range by tomorrow night/next day depending on how fast it proceeds.

The overall SE US was in the throes of drought for some years (by their
standards, by ours it would have been above normal to have had the
accumulations of most places so that's relative, too). OTOH, this year
most have been inundated and were wet last year as well. e-mail
acquaintance in NE AL said they had right at 78" this past year. We
were about normal; 100 miles east and on they like to never got crops in
for wet spring and still have corn and beans in fields in areas because
was cool and damp all summer keeping everything late and then turned wet
again when needed dry weather for harvest.

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