User talk:FUBAR007/2013

Discussion regarding WikiProject Kansas
I have started a discussion about making WikiProject Kansas a standalone project separate from WikiProject United States. Please join the discussion at the WikiProject Kansas talk page.

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Thanks, Ks0stm  (T•C•G•E) 01:08, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Daily average
Re-inserting the outright incorrect daily average is asking for trouble. You know very well daily averages are calculated by NOAA as (HI + LO) / 2, and when the ending digits of the high and low are odd and even or even and odd, it is not your prerogative to break the tie and round either way. Hint : Breaking the tie involves something much more intelligent than mindlessly pressing the revert/undo button. GotR Talk 00:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)


 * OK kids, what exactly is this edit war over now? I'm hoping that it's not over tenths of a degree Fahrenheit, which don't matter to anyone, ever. Is it about using an "approved" (U.S. vs. somewhere else) source or something? Guy1890 (talk) 02:30, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it is about WP:COMPETENCE, distinguishing between normals and averages and not playing "mix and match" between them. As a side, a few tenths of a °F can matter in terms of Koeppen climate classification; take NYC as an example. GotR Talk 03:43, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I've noticed that you've been apparently trying to split hairs with the "normals vs. averages vs. means" line in a number of Wikipedia articles recently. That kind of line of thinking/editing is not very helpful. You do realize that, in the USA, the most recent, 30-year average (which is updated every ten years) is considered to be the most recent "normal", don't you? One or two tenths of a degree Fahrenheit almost never matters in temperature readings, especially considering that the instruments that measure those temperatures don't have a plus or minus error rate anywhere near that small a number. The error rates for many U.S. temperature sensors that have been in use over the last decade or so is more like +/- 2 deg F. It's also odd that you would try & make a climate argument based on NYC, when the table in the climate section of that article doesn't even list mean monthly temperatures, yet. The text of that section of the article does mention a few monthly average temperatures though. Again, in the USA, there really isn't a distinction between average & mean monthly temperatures. Guy1890 (talk) 06:03, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "Normals ≠ averages" refers to "Daily/monthly normals ≠ Monthly avgs/totals", respectively. Sorry, but TWC, Accuweather, and all local news agencies refer to the former, not the latter; scroll down to "Monthly Summary for January 2013", which matches the current version (taken from "Daily/monthly normals") of the template, not the one (taken from "Monthly avgs/totals") that stood until 22 February. So I suggest you keep your absurdly large mouth shut when discussing matters of which you have NO knowledge or experience whatsoever. GotR Talk 14:42, 30 June 2013 (UTC)


 * You've got to be kidding me. I've been a meteorologist for over 20 years, and I happened to be a weather observer for the NWS for over 6 years at two first-order climate stations. I also routinely gathered & disseminated climate data for over twice that period of time while previously working for the NWS, and I was the ASOS program leader at one of those first order climate stations. In the USA, the climate "normals" cited by the NWS & NCDC are, in fact, a running 30-year window average. Surely someone that has (or is seeking?) a degree in Mathematics & Statistics knows the difference between a mean and an average and, more importantly, the times when a mean and an average are the exact same thing, as in this case here. If you want to be a stickler about calling the 30-year average temperatures cited in the weather tables a mean, then have at it, but they are, in this case, the exact same thing.
 * The "differences" in the data for the immediate Dodge City, Kansas case are caused by rounding errors, nothing more, nothing less. The NWS climate websites even tell one this very clearly when the data is initially displayed: "Sum/average of daily NORMALS might not match monthly normal due to rounding." Again, someone with almost any experience with numbers can easily understand the concept of a rounding error.
 * Also, keep in mind my friend that you do not own the data that's displayed in any of the weather tables here on Wikipedia. Do yourself a favor and drop these "issues" and move on with your own life. Guy1890 (talk) 18:57, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * And rounding does not account for the "differences" for each station. Certainly not for NYC (0.8 °F consistent skew) and other locations where the difference is more than 1.0 °F. GotR Talk 00:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but this really is quite a sorry display here. The "differences" (between the NWS/NCDC "Monthly avgs" & the "monthly normals" Avg Temperature data) for the Central Park NYC climate station amount to a grand total of 0.4 (and occasionally 0.5) degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, they amount to just about exactly nothing, especially given that the temperature sensors there can't resolve actual temperature differences that are that small. I consider this issue to be closed. For the record, I'm watching both the Dodge City, Kansas and Wichita, Kansas articles. Please don't mess around with them in the future over these unimportant type of issues. IMHO, there's no need to elevate this matter further. I think we're done wasting time here. Guy1890 (talk) 02:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

In the interest of assuming good faith on your part, I have addressed your new concerns by re-populating the Daily Mean data on the Dodge City, Kansas and Wichita, Kansas pages using data from the National Weather Service's "Daily/monthly normals" products at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=ddc and http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=ict, respectively. The Daily Mean data I was entering before was taken verbatim from the "Avg temperature" data in the NWS's "Monthly avgs/totals" product for each city. I was not doing any rounding or deriving any figures myself.

If, however, this is an extension by other tactics of the previous debate over the inclusion of Daily Mean data, and you oppose the consensus reached here so vehemently, please take your concerns back to the Dodge City talk page, and present your case through appropriate Dispute resolution channels.

Given how strongly you feel about these issues and how precise a vision you have for the presentation of Climate data, I suggest you compile your ideas into a set of clear guidelines, get consensus on them from the editor community, and present them in an appropriate forum (i.e. the Climate section of the WP:USCITY template page, WikiProject Meteorology, Template:Weather box, etc.) so that other editors can clearly see them. FUBAR007 (talk) 14:23, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * As long as the changes under the edit summary "normals ≠ averages", which in reality refers to NWS Online Weather Data's two products "Daily/monthly normals" and "Monthly averages" (nevermind its name), I don't need to go to the trouble. GotR Talk 14:42, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You're wasting everyone's time with these kind of changes...see above. Guy1890 (talk) 19:00, 30 June 2013 (UTC)