Mayhem In May And Those Silly ‘Hottest Month Ever’ Claims

Was May hotter than the dustbowl of 1934? Let’s start with this NOAA Graphic:

It looks to me that May 2018 is warmer than May 1934 but that doesn’t “leave it in the dustbowl” by any means or tell the whole story.

Here is the point: May was darn warm and certainly confirmed the sudden summer idea. But then again we were saying to watch for that back in April. May was likely warmer than 1934.

However, if it can get that warm in 1934, it can certainly get this warm now without having to blame whatever it is someone wants to blame as far as man’s influence

But let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?

Was May the HOTTEST on record? You see that is something that really bugs me, if temperatures are higher than normal, it’s referred to in agenda-driven circles as the HOTTEST.

The temperature of the planet is something that no one really knows exactly but its approximately 14C. That’s 57.2F. Is 57.2 F even warm to you? Does that mean if it’s 58F, it’s hot?

But there was plenty of heat in May. Hot to many people is 90F or higher. If we look at the area of more than 8F above normal for MAX temperature in 1934 vs 2018:

It appears that the area of greater deviations from normal on the max temp side in 1934 is greater than in 2018.

But then again, Jan-May was far drier in 1934 than 2018, though there was some dryness over the plains, but notice the wet further east in 2018:

But here is where it gets interesting, with low temperatures. See that bone-dry ground? Look at the low temps in 1934 vs 2018:

Where there was more precip. in the first 5 months of the year, the MINS were higher and it’s the min temps that made the big difference.

Now let’s go back to our old friend, mixing ratios. The influence of water vapor (WV) is greater the lower the temperature is. Let’s say your normal high in May is 70F, the normal low is 50F.

Let’s look at mixing ratios and at those temperatures:

No such charts exist for CO2 because there is no physical relationship of value. Two grams of WV at the lower temps make a bigger difference.

So, if we increase from 7.74 to 9.74, the corresponding temp is around 56F, or 6 degrees higher (saturated air, pressure 1000mb) if we are 17.95 we are at 73.5 or only 3.5 higher (2 gram/kg increase from where it corresponds at 70).

Again, the higher the temperature, the HARDER it is to make it higher, and WV is the great mitigator of all this.

If you have nothing better to do, then you can play with this all day here:

https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_mixingratio

Again we have mixing ratio charts with temperature, dew point, and corresponding amounts of water vapor because we have known physical relationships. with them. If co2 was such a big deal, why no charts we can use with that?

Okay, but we have to track down where this extra WV is coming from. Because YOU CAN NOT KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING WITHOUT KNOWING WHERE YOU CAME FROM, OR WHERE YOU STAND!

Well if you are like me, someone who looks at Dr. Gray’s work you point your finger at the oceans. But why are the oceans the way they are? Well, if you are like me, you then go to the sun, for instance, so you are gobbling up the ideas of people like Dr. Willie Soon. If you are in the CO2 camp, people like Dr. Mann are where you run to.

My belief is that the state of the oceans today comes down to the argument between the solar scientists and the co2 scientists.

The ideal thing is to look at all sides. My conclusions come from the idea that the solar and oceans are pushing around other things, but if you are glued to the co2 theory, you would not be very open to that. But you have to look.

I obviously side on the side of the big drivers, but if all you are looking at is one of the arguments, then you don’t see the others

So, let’s take this whole argument here and expand it, Like it or not skeptics, until such time the global temperature falls, the CO2-driven side has an argument.

It is different to know something as opposed to believing it, I have seen countless arguments where the conclusion is such that the person arguing KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN.

And sometimes it does, But in any future event, you can believe something will happen, but until it does you cannot KNOW it ( sad to say with readjustments even what has happened is being attacked)

But I can shout it down, shoot it down, shut it down all I want, but as Bill Nye would respond, ‘Joe it’s getting warmer’ (he did so a hundred times in my house when we were filming the movie I was in with him). We all know correlation does not mean causation. The best you can do is present arguments and then see the results. I believe I am right, but so does Nye, Dr. Mann, etc.

I have laid out an argument as to why this May was the way it was, and in some ways was predictable (anytime it stays cold deep into spring its liable to snap because a warmer than normal pattern developing after the extreme cold is going to seem that way) as we said to watch out for it.

But the real shame of all this today is what was an OUTSTANDING WEATHER EVENT, are being dragged into the climate agenda again as to it being this or that. But again the comparisons to 1934 are startling, though not exact.

Look at Mar/April 1934, then May:

This year, then May:

Amazing snaps given it rides an analog that is almost a year old, based on global Tropical cyclone similarities.

In any case, since I am seeing and hearing a lot of things about what May meant, so I thought I would weigh in.

What I really think is that such things are enjoyable to ponder, and that fits in with a philosophy I have always had, that you should enjoy the weather, it’s the only weather you got.

Joe Bastardi, a pioneer in extreme weather and long-range forecasting,  He has been in love with the weather since he was three and has a BS in meteorology from PSU and has been working every day since then in the field. He is the author of “The Climate Chronicle: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore — and Others.”