Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.
- Mark Twain
Year to Date & Current Month
Click thumbnails for a larger image
Current Year to Date numerical data with projections based on historical data since 1895.
On the left are Annual and Oct-Sept Rainy Season totals to date, an estimate for the whole period and the year's rank since 1895. Higher rankings are wetter. Below are annual averages and remaining Average - YtD. Below that are Historical and Rainy Season Min/Max and year.
On the right is the data date & rain, total to date, month average and Standard Deviations for the month, Year and Rain Year.
Below are two current month estimates based on the historical data. The Trapezoid Estimate uses a linear estimate based on the slope of the previous, current and next month averages. The Polynomial Function uses a 4th order polynomial to fit a curve through the prior two, current and next two months' averages. Current month to date rank based on the polynomial curve through the monthly averages.
At the bottom are the Min & Max years for the month.
Daily Rain
Monthly & Annual Average Rain
Monthly & Annual Average Rain, Current Month and Year to Date and Minimum, Average and Maximum annual rainfall since 1895. North Pacific coastal towns can be a bit damp at times.
Five Year History by Month with Annual and Rain Year to Date
A very useful app for precipitation prognostication is
Flowx. The free version is better than many paid apps evaluated. Using the app, you can decide the best time for walking the dog, marketing, hiking, flying, etc. The missus uses the free version and I, the Gold. It's a very polished app with a simple, but flexible interface. We were even able to use it to determine a forward berth on a cruise should be OK by looking at general wave patterns. Highly recommended.
Annual Rain Totals
A lie gets half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
- Winston Churchill
Annual Rain Totals and trend since 1895. Annual totals over the years with data† has a decreasing* trend, about 0.058in/yr. A few wet years, as occurred around 1900, could negate or reverse the trend.
OTOH, a polynomial function shows that rain is increasing for the last couple of decades. Data over a longer time frame would give higher reliability, unless the data is chaotic, in which case making predictions is a fools errand. And therein lies the danger of predicting the future based on infinitesimally short data sets.
Volatility
The graph shows rainfall by month from 1895 to present. There is no pattern or trend in year to year rainfall. The dotted lines are the data mean. It can be seen that rainfall may be below average for several years and then ping-pong above and below. Or an exceedingly wet month can occur after a year of below average rain as occurred in December 2016, presaging the 2nd wettest year in Florence's history.
Another way of looking at the same data is how much the data varies from average. The graph thin line shows the Min/Max range and the rectangle shows the Average ± StDev. All too frequently, alarmists make statements like "Rain has been below average for the past three years." While that may be true, given the chaotic precipitation, it's essentially meaningless.
Still another way is looking at averages over different periods. The graph at left shows averages over a pseudo Fibonacci series starting with 10 years and then adding a Fibonacci series to 10. As can be seen the long term average varies little, less than ±2 inches over the whole period. Humans tend have a decade defect in that they don't look long term. Even a moderate 30 year term can be misleading by the beginning of the 1940's average rainfall had been decreasing for over 40 years! Just as Global Warming and Climate Change hysteria began with a warm decade in the 1990's.
Historical Trends
“plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”
- Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
A great many bits are committed to climate change.
The climate has always changed.
The climate will always change.
The graph averages monthly year to year change from 1895 to present in four periods. The legend caption is the last year of the period. While the period volatility is quite pronounced, the overall volatility is remarkably constant, up a very little, down a very little over a century and a quarter.
The graph shows Tmin, Tmean and Tmax for Florence. Maximum temperature trend is down by three one thousandths of one degree Fahrenheit per year over the past century and a quarter. The minimum temperature rises by the same amount. The mean temperature decreases by 20 MILLIONTHS per year. If one looks at the period beginning around 1980, i.e. the start of the global warming hysteria, temperatures are rising. Around the time global warming morphed into
Prognostication
“...avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place”
- Winston Churchill
Overall |
31-60 years |
Last 30 yrs |
Comparison |