Anthony Cox
Temperatures
smash 30-year July record in New South Wales
Shock and horror!
My friend Phill who really knows about
temperature history made a brief succinct response:
The article is titled "Temperatures smash 30-year July record in New South Wales" and the text states, "Temperatures in the New
South Wales town of Moree have broken a 32-year record for the warmest July
day, with unseasonably warm weather predicted for other parts of the state this
weekend."
Wednesday's
record breaking temperature was 25.7oC. 32 years ago in 1985
the maximum July temperature was 26.1oC on the 29th, so, for the
record, no record has been broken (or smashed for that matter). Going
back further, on the 18th July 1974 the temperature hit 26.5 oC so
the record is actually 43 years old and still no record has been
broken. In case you might quibble that this is just some poorly
kept hick station, the August 1975 edition of the "CLIMATE AVERAGES AUSTRALIA"
published by the Bureau of Meteorology lists the Moree site as Moree (A.) Met.
Office.
This would seem to indicate that the site was professionally
manned by BoM staff and was at or near the airport (A.). Notice too that
for the period of overlap with the current station both sites recorded nearly
identical extremes. Currently the Climate Data Online (CDO) lists this
office as Moree Comparison. This site was opened in 1964 so high quality
records exist at Moree for over 50 years now.
Why stop there: the Moree
Post Office has temperature records dating back to at least the early 1880s
although the BoM's CDO only has maximum monthly temperatures listed from 1910
onward. Unfortunately the first 30 years of temperature data which
includes the known warm period leading up to and out of the great Federation
drought are not available in digital tables, never-the-less the remaining data
from Moree PO has at least 6 July occasions when last Wednesday's "non
record" was exceeded including a whopping 27.8oC on the 28th
July 1958.
This graph says it
all:
