User:Soap/interesting climates


 * See also User:Soap/workspace

This is my playpen and these are my toys.

While this page may seem, to even seasoned Wikipedians, an utter waste of time and space, please note that much good has come from this page, as can be seen from my  associated edits these past few years.

The Three Alaskas
I want to break this up into at least three regions even if some regions have only two or three stations. Alaska spans several climate zones and not all town names give clues about their location.

Alaska's weather stations are spaced widely enough apart that almost every city can be interesting, as none are quite like the others.

Nome and Fairbanks have nearly identical annual temperatures .... an unusual trait for such a high latitude. Ordinarily one would expect the station nearer the ocean to be much warmer in winter and nearly the same temperature in summer. It may be that Nome's winters are colder than one might expect because the even colder landmass of Siberia is nearby. Fairbanks is colder than Nome only from October through February, though the seasons change very rapidly and month end dates are not significant events. Note also that Nome has recorded -11F in May, whereas the record in Fairbanks is -1.

I am including the north coast as part of interior Alaska because the climate does not greatly change at the coast. I may decide later to group it with the Aleutians instead, since a strong claim can be made that the climate divisions here are more about precipitation than temperature.

Attu Island is colder than Unalaska in all months even though Attu is further south and further from the mainland. This may indicate that Siberia's cold pool is so powerful that the ocean is a stronger cooling influence than the land to the east.

Pacific Northwest coastal region
This will probably include the Pacific NW in a wider sense, e.g. from Alaska all the way to San Francisco. Essentially starting at the point where the climate is wet all year round, and stopping at the point where it's dry all year round.

Falls City, Oregon has 80 48 in summer

These weather stations are not split by state, but by ecoregion.

Following Portland -> Salem -> Eugene actually gets cooler going south. THis is the Willamette Valley. Medford OR is not in this valley.

Oregon changes from mediterranean at Hood River, Oregon to desert at Umatilla, Oregon in just 50 miles. it is likely that the whole Pacific NW follows this pattern, and rainfall maps of the region agree, though this is likely extrapolated data.

Central Valley
Red_Bluff,_California and Bakersfield,_California have almost identical temperatures despite being separated by almost five degrees of latitude. These cities are at the northern and southern ends of the Central Valley, and all of the areas in between them have almost identical temperatures as well except for  slightly cooler summer temperatures near the bay.

Imagine if the Central Valley extended from 40N       to 45N instead. Or from 45N to 50N.

Wine Country and extenstions
This is a strip of land just onshore from the coast of California where the climate is much cooler than further inland. Towards the southern end of the area, even in winter the climate is cooler near the coast than it is deep inland. This defies traditional explanation in terms of elevation, wind currents, and so on but the signal is clear.

Falls City, Oregon and perhaps even Yakima, Washington also follow this pattern, though the data is harder to figure out in the northern states because there is no large central valley to compare the coast with.

Santa_Rosa,_California 39F November low, 34 in Jan ... colder than Red Bluff etc

Sierra Nevada
Bishop, California has temperatures similar to the "old" Reno, but about 8F warmer in all months. Most noticeable is the amplitude.

Tonopah, Nevada is quite warm for its elevation.

Interior Pacific NW
This is the "Oreida" area, but I may merge it with Great Divide. The precipitation patterns of the two regions are very similar .... that is, more rain in winter .... and there is no clear boundary between them. After correcting for elevation differences, there may not be much to distinguish.

The Great Divide Region
Potomac, MT just got to -29F in October but their weather station seems to be no longer reporting. Also, there is no Wikipedia article for Potomac, Montana and it may be a part of some other town. nevertheless, Google Maps resolves it to its own name.

Riverton, Wyoming and Lander, Wyoming have surprising variation for such a small area, and .... yes, the one with the lower elevation is noticeably colder.

Cedar City, Utah .... climate is perhaps not so interesting, but during the winter of 2006-7 the weather was quite interesting, ... average low temperature for Jan 2007 was just 1°F. Almost as cold as KINL. This almost repeated in Jan 2013, and it may have something to do with pressure patterns (cold west/warm east).

Glenwood Springs, Colorado ... far colder than Denver .... similar to Grand JUnction

High Plains
Here one sees a continuation of the "lazy mountains" phenomenon found in British Columbia and Alberta, where temperature varies little with elevation and, particularly in winter, cities above 5000 ft altitude are warmer than sea level on average and not just when the chinook winds blow.

Note that cities like Denver, while conventionally thought of as mountain cities, are clearly within the high plains climate zone as they show much greater similarity to the climates of western Kansas, Nebraska, and so on than they do to cities west of the Great Divide even within each state.

Crow Agency, Montana is right near Billings, Montana but the two towns have very different climates, particularly with regards to temperature.

Webster, South Dakota is colder than its surroundings in all directions. Nearby Aberdeen, South Dakota is also quite cold and perhaps slightly more remarkable due to being on lower ground. Same latitude as Crow Agency, Montana.

Albuquerque, New Mexico is almost as warm as Roswell, New Mexico, and if the cooler night temperatures are taken as factual, the difference in temperature between the two cities is less than 2°F.

"Snow Country"
International Falls's annual average low temperature is just a fraction of a degree higher than that of Flin Flon in all seasons. During some winters, KINL and environs gets very little snow.

White River, Ontario and  Wawa, Ontario, close by each other, both have no months above 60F.

suspicious climate data at Marathon, Ontario.

Appalachians
This is organized by natural environment, so I consider the whole of the Appalachians to be a single region, from Macon Georgia all the way to Canada.


 * Blairsville, GA ... further south and a lower elevation than asheville NC, but cooler than Asheville. In other words, Blairsville is a winner.


 * Sutton, Vermont ... two weather stations in one town


 * Pittsburg, New Hampshire only started tracking temperature in 2019!! A town like this    could easily have two or even three weather stations, this town really has none at all.
 * hmmm .... actually First Connecticut Lake does have good data, even though it loaded with an error message. i believe i saw this data in the late 1990s. The anomalous reading of –96°F on Jan 15, 1922    however suggests that the data may need a quick look-through before copying to Wikipedia.


 * algific talus slopes


 * Coudersport, Pennsylvania is 28 14 / 76 54 according to https://prism.oregonstate.edu/explorer/ ... shows even colder temperatures at 2300 ft, and there was another station at 2200 ft operated for about fifteen years.  the coldest station may   be within Hebron, Potter County, Pennsylvania   .... this is slightly colder than even the notorious Smethport.   Bradford, Pennsylvania may however be the best example to follow, as its weather station has been in service for a long time.

Bay of Fundy
Maine and parts of the Maritime provinces of Canada. Notable for the maritime climates and a subtle warming trend towards the east.... stations at the extreme east end of this region can even have warmer summers than stations further west, whereas one would naively expect to find warmer winters but ever cooler summers as one moves out to sea. This is likely due to the eastern edge of North America catching the fringes of the Gulf Stream again, having left it somewhere around North Carolina.

On the other hand, St. John's, Newfoundland has the same average annual temperature to within a degree of Bathurst, New Brunswick, so perhaps the temperature gap is an illusion created by focusing on Jan & Jul instead of the whole year.

The Grand Banks apparently is the area where cold and warm water mix, and Sable Island, Nova Scotia, is in this same area    despite being geographically well to the west of Newfoundland. The surprisingly warm summers of Sable Island (warmer than even a few mainland locations) could thus be explained by the presence of warm water there. Yet Newfoundland, despite being further east, does not poke into the warm water region, which only begins a few dozen miles offshore.

Due to recent trends in sea surface temperatures, I expect the warming of coastal and especially offshore locations to accelerate, although this warming will also affect inland areas because of synoptic-scale phenomena being pulled by the ocean. Winter Storm Urine was an example of how a powerful snowstorm can turn into rain when it reaches the east coast, even in the middle of winter, simply because the ocean is warm and stronger storms pull in more ocean winds.

Was 89F in Hartford CT just a flat-out mistake?

others
Oasis Ranger Station, FL has Jan high 78.3F and 80 in both Feb & Dec.

Royal Palm Ranger Station, FL has January high of 81. See Everglades article.

Western Canada
Western Canada has a humid subtropical climate, bordering on a warm desert climate in interior regions. Precipitation falls mostly during winter, slowing down in spring and then stopping in summer because it is so hot. Generally the climate gets hotter going towards the mountains because hot air rises. Snow occurs in some areas at higher latitudes, but as with the rest of Canada, this snow is green.

The Plains of Alberta could be considered as somewhat like Montana, Wyoming, etc. and the temperature contrasts are even more extreme. However, Alberta nowhere has plains cities with elevations like those of Wyoming, as the mountains in that part of Canada seem to be less tall than elsewhere. Moving north, the longitude at which the winter temperature is coldest moves westward, and therefore the contrast between west and east is reduced. Yet, at the same time, the magnitude of winter temperature swings is greater in the far north, so in winter, a similar temperature contrast appears nonetheless. Furthermore it seems from looking at Alaska that summer temperatures are somehow also warmer towards the west than towards the east even in the far north.

Northern Canada

 * Alert, Nunavut
 * Arctic Bay
 * Cambridge Bay
 * Eureka, Nunavut
 * Grise Fiord
 * Inukjuak
 * Iqaluit
 * Moosonee
 * Sachs Harbour
 * Yellowknife

Look for stations located on Lake Winnipeg. Arborg, Manitoba is on the western shore and somewhat of a disappointment. Hecla does not seem to have a weather station.

Kugaaruk

'Ntarct
After a brief and mostly bloodless war, the penguins and humans agreed to divide the content of Antarctica between them. Humans live mostly in the interior, where the climate is too cold for penguins to survive. Some humans are allowed to live near the coast, but they are deprived of voting rights and must obey special laws  created by the penguins.

Russia
Russia is such a large place that even geography experts may have a difficult time placing individual cities, so I am breaking it up. Going by political subdivision would be of little help to people who don't already know where everything is, so I am using natural boundaries.

Subtropical Rim
Some of these cities are mentioned below in comparisons, but here they are listed on their own.

Соьлжа-ГӀала is near Sochi but much colder in winter and slightly cooler even in summer.

Siberia
This is the popular definition of Siberia, not the political one, and excludes any coastal settlements covered above or below.

Тосонцэнгэл is also very cold, colder than its surroundings.

Pacific Rim

 * Arica
 * Chula Vista, California
 * La Paz
 * Puerto Peñasco
 * Tacna

Hawaii

 * Haleakalā
 * Mauna Kea

Australia

 * Darwin, Australia
 * Wyndham
 * Eucla  38F in summer at 32S on the coast
 * Eighty Mile Beach
 * Perth

The Great Australian Bight has surprisingly mild summers. Perth is in a transitional area where the climate is warmer but it still occasionally gets cold winds.

New Zealand

 * Alexandra, New Zealand

Africa
Most of what is here consists of desert locations that are either surprisingly cool or surprisingly hot. Little attention is paid to precipitation except in the immediate vicinity of the Equator.

The Hunt for Red October
There is very little difference in the climates of Lubumbashi > Lusaka > Bulawayo > Pretoria despite them spanning from 11S to 25S and the northernmost member being at the lowest elevation.

Norway
Norway has a temperate climate, moderated by oceanic influences. Snow has never been recorded in Norway, which is why none of the climate charts have a snow row.

Others
Praděd Mt Washington

Innsbruck, Austria .... roughly equivalent to Spokane and Thompson Falls, Montana.

Mostar, a city in Bosnia near sea level at about 43N. It has surprisingly hot summers and a high daily temperature amplitude. Similar to Rome, but more useful when comparing to cities in Spain, France, and all the way across Asia because of the many locations at 43N.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Derbent 80F in winter at 42°N, rivaling the "Double Oregon" climate.

Tashkent also has 80F in winter. It is slightly further south but also at a higher elevation (around 1440 ft) and so this may be even more unusual. Still, neither city's record comes close to cities like Cheyenne, Wyoming recording 70F in winter but at an elevation of more than 6000 ft.

Greenland

 * Qassimiut
 * Summit Camp

I'll let someone else add this but I am keeping the link here for reference: Temperature of −69.6 °C discovered at Klinck AWS, Greenland.

Ilulissat has warmer record highs in winter than Tromso. Both are at 69N, so Ilulissat may be the record holder for that latitude.

South America

 * Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, the world champion of cold temperatures in the tropics. Note that this is not a highland location.  Compare Ixtepec,_Oaxaca, which is just as cold, however, at 17°N in southern Mexico.  It's not as impressive because it's further from the Equator, but 17N is still pretty far away from cold air masses of the north, so I have to wonder where the cold air is coming from.
 * Chuapalca, with 50F diurnal temperature range in winter.

Hyrule
Rauru