Ticker for April 18, 2003

                
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April 18, 2003     April 18, 2003     April 18, 2003     April 18, 2003


Oklahoma's Climatic Temperatures Careening Toward "Bland"

A quick survey by OCS Climate Information Group climatologist Mark
Shafer shows that Oklahoma's temperatures are on a reckless course
toward moderation.  Extreme temperature events (highest max, lowest
max, highest min, lowest in) have occurred at a lower frequency
in the last 40ish years than in the first half of the century.

The following graphic shows the number of records set in each "decade"
("0" through "9" years: an affront to decade purists) at 41 selected
long-term stations:



Each decade's bars indicate, from left to right, the number of:
highest max temp records (dark red)
lowest max temp records (baby blue)
highest min temp records (pink)
lowest min temp records (navy)

In a blatant act of scientific cowardice, the Ticker staff removed the
numbers from the left axis while we fine-tune our methodology.  There
are competing biases yet to be addressed in this edition of the data:

1. A handful of stations did not come online until the 20s or 30s.
(this might blunt the number of events in the early decades)
2. Only record-breaking events are counted (ties aren't)
(this might blunt the number of events in later decades)

However, the relative "extremeism" of each decade should appear.

The drought/heatwave years of the 1910s, 1930s and 1950s show up
dramatically on the warm end.  The 1990s show up as a markedly
non-extreme decade, save for the occurrence of the minimum high
temperature.  And this makes sense, considering that the 90s were
the rainiest decade on record in Oklahoma.