DIY Weather Records


 Record extreme temperatures for 1-23 February 2012.: Wundergound

Record extreme temperatures for 1-23 February 2012: WundergoundWundergound has launched a cool new tool today called Record Extremes that lets you see and sort US and international records for temperature, rainfall, and snowfall set on a map and a table.

The image above is one I generated for the month of February (so far: 1-23 Feb 2012), looking at daily-maximum-high-temp records and all-time-max-high-temp records for the lower 48. It returned 450 record highs plotted on the map, plus a list of each record in a table format (not shown).

The site is a lot more interactive than this screen save. You can click on each record on the map and see its stats, then zoom in for a closer look.

Many of the icons on the map above are actually bundles of several records in close proximity. As you can see, it’s been a record-breaking February in the US, with some places breaking multiple records (gray icons).

As for the data behind the tool, here’s what Angela Fritz at WunderBlog writes:

The product uses data from three sources: (1) NOAA’s National Climate Data Center [NCDC], (2) Wunderground’s US records, and (3) Wunderground’s International records. The NCDC records begin in 1850 and include official NOAA record extreme events for… weather stations in all 50 US states as well as Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Pacific Islands. In this database you can find records for maximum high temps, minimum high temps, maximum low temps, minimum high temps, snow, and precipitation on daily, monthly, and all-time scales.

 

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate