What is your craziest WEATHER stat or fun fact?

[webny99]

A weather spinoff from the "craziest travel stat or fun fact" thread. Despite the superlative thread title, please feel free to submit as many entries as you'd like and add more over time.

Here in the Rochester NY area, 2025 started with an outside temperature of 45 degrees at midnight. The temperature then dropped all night, falling below 40 by morning on New Year's Day, and has not risen above 40 degrees since. And with more cold on the way, that could continue well into February. I find it pretty crazy that almost a month into the year, only the first six hours of the year cost me the ability to say "it hasn't been over 40 degrees this year".

[dvferyance]

Milwaukee only got 3 inches of snow in January of 2025. Way less then areas much further south.

[webny99]

Milwaukee only got 3 inches of snow in January of 2025. Way less then areas much further south.

The Gulf coast, for example? 

[SEWIGuy]

In 2023 in Green Bay, WI, Halloween (40) had a lower high temperature than Thanksgiving (41), and Thanksgiving had a lower high than Christmas (54).

[webny99]

We have received measurable snowfall on 20 of the past 22 days.

[Max Rockatansky]

The last two times I moved across the country it snowed heavily while I was passing through New Nexico on I-10.  In early 2013 I was moving from Arizona to Florida and to California in 2016.

[jgb191]

Brownsville's then highest temperature of 106 degrees did NOT occur in the Summer season, nor Fall, nor Spring....it happened during the winter season of March 18th of 1984.  It has since been tied or eclipsed several other days during the other three seasons.

[CoreySamson]

This week was the first time in my life that I have seen more than three inches of snow on the ground.

Also, here in Tulsa, this February has seen both an 84 degree high and a 2 degree low, basically within a span of two weeks.

[kphoger]

No temperature below 41°F has ever been recorded in Burkina Faso.
No temperature above 87°F has ever been recorded in Iceland.

[JayhawkCO]

The top 6 states for record high temperatures are:

California (134°)
Arizona (128°)
Nevada (125°)
New Mexico (122°)

and...

North Dakota/Kansas (121°)

[JayhawkCO]

In the Northern Mariana Islands, the difference between the record high (99°) and record low (62°) is only 37°.

In contrast, the highest difference in the US is Utah with 189° difference between its high (120°) and its low (-69°).

[jeffandnicole]

With all the talk of climate change or global warming (use whatever term you see fit), Philadelphia's record temperature extremes were set several generations ago. 

The record low of -11 was set in Feb 1934.  This record is quite an outlier:  The 2nd coldest day ever was -7.  When -11 was hit, the lows for the day before and day after were at least 6 degrees warmer.  More recently, the city has barely recorded a below 0 temp in decades.

The record high of 106 was set in 1918.  Philly has never had a 105 degree day. They've had a few 104 degree highs.  100+ degree days don't occur too often in Philly; most years there aren't any.  The typical hottest month - July - has 7 of 31 days with records below 100.

[kphoger]

The top 6 states for record high temperatures are:

California (134°)
Arizona (128°)
Nevada (125°)
New Mexico (122°)

and...

North Dakota/Kansas (121°)

Kind of crazy to me that it isn't something like Utah, considering I've personally been in 115°F heat in Utah.

[SectorZ]

With all the talk of climate change or global warming (use whatever term you see fit), Philadelphia's record temperature extremes were set several generations ago. 

The record low of -11 was set in Feb 1934.  This record is quite an outlier:  The 2nd coldest day ever was -7.  When -11 was hit, the lows for the day before and day after were at least 6 degrees warmer.  More recently, the city has barely recorded a below 0 temp in decades.

The record high of 106 was set in 1918.  Philly has never had a 105 degree day. They've had a few 104 degree highs.  100+ degree days don't occur too often in Philly; most years there aren't any.  The typical hottest month - July - has 7 of 31 days with records below 100.

The -11 in Philly was the same date Boston hit -17 for its all-time known record. Of course that was at the Mass Statehouse, where the current ob is at Logan now.

[jeffandnicole]

With all the talk of climate change or global warming (use whatever term you see fit), Philadelphia's record temperature extremes were set several generations ago. 

The record low of -11 was set in Feb 1934.  This record is quite an outlier:  The 2nd coldest day ever was -7.  When -11 was hit, the lows for the day before and day after were at least 6 degrees warmer.  More recently, the city has barely recorded a below 0 temp in decades.

The record high of 106 was set in 1918.  Philly has never had a 105 degree day. They've had a few 104 degree highs.  100+ degree days don't occur too often in Philly; most years there aren't any.  The typical hottest month - July - has 7 of 31 days with records below 100.

The -11 in Philly was the same date Boston hit -17 for its all-time known record. Of course that was at the Mass Statehouse, where the current ob is at Logan now.

Philly's official weather station has moved as well.  While it could cause a little difference, this overall area will experience fairly similar temps until the elevation rises or you get deeper into the PA/NJ suburbs.

[Big John]

All-time record high temperature for Alaska is 100F.
All-time record high temperature for Hawaii is 100F.

[Road Hog]

Since records began being kept in DFW in 1898, the Metroplex has NEVER had less than a trace of measurable frozen precipitation. We went several years in Arkansas in the late 1990s with no snow. Then we got hammered right around Y2K.

[RZF]

Part fact, part observation. California weather, as beautiful and stable as it is, operates so much differently from the rest of the country. Living on the coast, the weather is practically the same year round, with 60-75F highs in the winter and 70-85F in the summer. I don't even have to check the weather app to go out because I'll wear the same attire any day of the year (unless it's raining). There really is no fall or spring from a climate standpoint.

And then of course, it could be 72F on the coast in June, and 15 miles inland it will be 100F. The microclimates are insane.

Here's the crazy fact: San Diego, further south than LA and San Francisco, has the lowest all-time record low (25F) of the three.

[Scott5114]

The top 6 states for record high temperatures are:

California (134°)
Arizona (128°)
Nevada (125°)
New Mexico (122°)

and...

North Dakota/Kansas (121°)

Kind of crazy to me that it isn't something like Utah, considering I've personally been in 115°F heat in Utah.

I suspect the ND/KS records mentioned here are old enough that they weren't taken with reliable equipment. While the weather on the Plains is extreme, it is hard to imagine it legitimately getting hotter than Las Vegas (120°F is the record here, set in 2024). Grasses bring temperatures down due to evaporation of the water they absorb from the soil. (Which is one reason why Vegas's record is so recent—the city has removed a lot of grass to conserve water, so temperatures increased.) For the Plains to legitimately reach 121° would require an incredibly hot air mass.

[JayhawkCO]

I suspect the ND/KS records mentioned here are old enough that they weren't taken with reliable equipment. While the weather on the Plains is extreme, it is hard to imagine it legitimately getting hotter than Las Vegas (120°F is the record here, set in 2024). Grasses bring temperatures down due to evaporation of the water they absorb from the soil. (Which is one reason why Vegas's record is so recent—the city has removed a lot of grass to conserve water, so temperatures increased.) For the Plains to legitimately reach 121° would require an incredibly hot air mass.

Well, 10 states (including KS and ND) all have their record highs in July of 1936, so I'm guessing there was one hell of a hot air mass.

[thspfc]

In my first ~6 months living in Minneapolis, there were 17 days that were record highs for their respective dates, meaning almost 10% of the days in that span were record highs. In the roughly year since there have been 5 more record highs.

9/3/2023 (97)
9/4/2023 (98)
9/30/2023 (88)
10/1/2023 (92; October record high)
10/2/2023 (89)
11/16/2023 (69)
12/24/2023 (55)
12/25/2023 (54)
1/29/2024 (50)
1/31/2024 (55)
2/6/2024 (57)
2/8/2024 (53)
2/26/2024 (65; February record high)
3/1/2024 (59)
3/2/2024 (63)
3/3/2024 (74)
3/11/2024 (68)
--
10/28/2024 (75)
10/29/2024 (80)
12/28/2024 (47)
1/28/2025 (47)
1/30/2025 (52)

The February record high was the weirdest one. On that Monday afternoon I biked 34 miles in shorts. Then I remember going outside less than 24 hours later to near blizzard conditions.

In 2023, Minneapolis began October with a mega-record high of 92, and ended October with snow on the ground. In 2024, Minneapolis had an October 29 record high of 80, and 48 hours later, ended October with snow on the ground.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Last Summer I went out to an orienteering event, and I was pleased to have a temperature of 70. On a late July Saturday afternoon. That was a full 27 degrees less than at my hometown at the time.

My hometown's climate gets incorrectly described as "humid subtropical" even though we don't have damp Summers (in fact humidity is rather low during that season). July and August are too warm for Cfb (oceanic), it rains too much for BSk (cold semi-arid), and both Summer and Winter are relatively dry (Spring and Fall are the rainiest seasons), so the climate gets classed as Cfa, but it is a rather atypical Cfa (a belt between Cfb to the North and BSk to the South).

[wxfree]

The record high for Portland, Oregon (116) is higher than the record for DFW (113).

[kphoger]

I suspect the ND/KS records mentioned here are old enough that they weren't taken with reliable equipment. While the weather on the Plains is extreme, it is hard to imagine it legitimately getting hotter than Las Vegas (120°F is the record here, set in 2024). Grasses bring temperatures down due to evaporation of the water they absorb from the soil. (Which is one reason why Vegas's record is so recent—the city has removed a lot of grass to conserve water, so temperatures increased.) For the Plains to legitimately reach 121° would require an incredibly hot air mass.

Since we moved to Wichita in 2008, there have been three years when it reached 111°F here.  In 1954, it reached 113°F.

In 2012, it reached 115°F in Hill City, KS.  It's only 6°F hotter than that to hit 121°F.

[kphoger]

I suspect the ND/KS records mentioned here are old enough that they weren't taken with reliable equipment. While the weather on the Plains is extreme, it is hard to imagine it legitimately getting hotter than Las Vegas (120°F is the record here, set in 2024). Grasses bring temperatures down due to evaporation of the water they absorb from the soil. (Which is one reason why Vegas's record is so recent—the city has removed a lot of grass to conserve water, so temperatures increased.) For the Plains to legitimately reach 121° would require an incredibly hot air mass.

Well, 10 states (including KS and ND) all have their record highs in July of 1936, so I'm guessing there was one hell of a hot air mass.

You'd think a guy from Oklahoma would have learned about the Dust Bowl at some point.

Yes, the heat dome of 1936 started around Independence Day, and the heat lasted two to three weeks—even into August in some areas.  Something like 6000 people died in the US and Canada during that heat wave.

Ironically, the record-setting heat wave followed on the heels of a record-setting cold wave earlier the same year.  North Dakota's all-time record low was also set in 1936, just 20 weeks earlier, at -60°F.  The city of Fargo never got above freezing from December 15 through February 29, but then it hit 114°F on July 6.