"dpb" wrote in message
...
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.

--

It's good to hear other places are doing better.

If it would of have rained more we would of got a break, but Central TX is
having a bad drought, and hot weather. Brushfires scare me.

I've always been skeptical (GW) but I want to see what happens next summer.
There's been some drastic rain shortages in Greece, Portugal, Spain. Spain
and Portugal have been having record heat for quite awhile now.

It would be interesting to see the temperature statistics for other planets,
but I don't think we're quite that sophisticated yet. I know there has been
a lot of talk about the recent lack of solar activity and it's relationship
to GW.