Tuesday, September 13, 2016

August was the hottest August on record - like, ever


According to the scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (which has the unfortunate acronym GISS which sounds more like a gas leak than a science agency) August 2016 globally was the warmest August on record out of the 136 years of record-keeping.  Last month also tied with July 2016 as the warmest month ever. This is hard to comprehend, but this graphic from NASA Earth Observatory helps put it into perspective.  Um, eeeeeeekkk ! 

NASA Earth Observatory chart by Joshua Stevens, based on data from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Locally, August 2016 also manged to be the hottest August on record, beating the old record by roughly half a degree. And there were way more 80° days last August than any other August in Buffalo - 28 of them in all.


Twenty-eight days with temperatures of 80 degrees or higher in Buffalo set a record this August. (xmACIS2)

However, unlike with the global average, August 2016 fell short of tying for Buffalo's warmest month ever. July 1921 retains its title with an all-time high average temperature of 76.2° and July of 1955 is still in second place at 76.0°. August 2016 goes down as Buffalo's third warmest month ever with an average temperature of 75.5°.

Strangely enough, February 2015 was the coldest month on record in Buffalo, ever. This is quite the temperature swing for just 18 months time.  Weather is weird and climate change downright scary!

 If you haven't yet, you should check out Monday's XKCD A Timeline of Earth’s Average Temperature  http://xkcd.com/1732/.

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