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Is California’s Heatwave Really So Hot? Rural stations reveal temperaturea ‘not in the least unusual’

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/08/19/is-californias-heatwave-really-so-hot/

Is California’s Heatwave Really So Hot?

By Paul Homewood

A temperature of 54.4C – or 129.9F – has been recorded in Death Valley, California, in what some extreme weather watchers believe could be the hottest reading ever reliably recorded on the planet.

The United States National Weather Service’s automated weather station at Furnace Creek near the border with Nevada hit the extreme high at 3:41pm on Sunday afternoon, a statement said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/17/death-valley-temperature-rises-to-544c-possibly-the-hottest-ever-reliably-recorded

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8634079/Death-Valley-hits-130-DEGREES-hottest-temperature-107-years.html

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Paul Homewood comments:

The heatwave in California has been making the news this week, and it is also being blamed for rolling blackouts in the state. But has it been exceptionally hot?

We normally see reports of “record” temperatures at big city sites. But what about rural ones? Lemon Cove is a small town of about 300 people, and lies just north of Bakersfield and west of Death Valley. It is also a long running, high quality USHCN site.

Temperatures this month have peaked at 109F:

http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/

Yet 109F is not in the least unusual there. The highest temperature on record was 115f, set in 1931 and again in 1933:

http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/

Indeed, 50 years have exceeded 109F.

Of course, thermometers at Lemon Cove are not placed on concrete parking lots, or next to airport runways!

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/homr/#ncdcstnid=10100102&tab=LOCATIONS

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