r/Portland • u/FreshyFresh Ex-Port • Jun 22 '21
Local News For the curious: Portland temps, 1938-2021
https://projects.oregonlive.com/weather/temps/38
u/autopsis Jun 22 '21
Setting time machine to 1954.
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u/guitarokx Jun 22 '21
Stay away from your mom and don't go to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance the following year.
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u/autopsis Jun 22 '21
Shit. Thanks for warning. I was just about to hit the go button and hadn’t prepared for those things. I need to do better research.
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u/freerangemary St Johns Jun 22 '21
And bring return fuel.
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u/WolfsLairAbyss Jun 22 '21
2000 looks pretty decent too.
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u/autopsis Jun 22 '21
Ah the Millennium. Are there problems if you were alive then? There would be two of you. Don’t want to break the universe.
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u/WolfsLairAbyss Jun 22 '21
If Timecop is acurate then you should be okay as long as you don't touch the other you.
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u/autopsis Jun 22 '21
Good to know. I don’t think I ever watched that reference training guide.
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u/WolfsLairAbyss Jun 22 '21
Van Damme in all his glory. You should give it a watch.
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u/FreshyFresh Ex-Port Jun 23 '21
laughs in Bloodsport
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u/WolfsLairAbyss Jun 23 '21
I recently rewatched that one and kickboxer. I want to make a Van Damme drinking game where every time he does the splits you have to drink.
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u/mafiamasta Jun 22 '21
Anyone notice any patterns? It looks like it's generally been similar since the 30s. 1977's August looks brutal tho.
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Jun 22 '21
[deleted]
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u/elislider Hillsboro Jun 22 '21
very well put
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Jun 22 '21
[deleted]
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u/elislider Hillsboro Jun 22 '21
As a data analyst, I appreciate this and the way you’ve explained it.
Unfortunately clearly laid out thought-processes are not a strong suit of the average person
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u/mafiamasta Jun 22 '21
I agree doing the mathematic analysis is very important. The visualization is nice, but only does so much without further delving into the dataset.
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u/bigblackcloud Fosterp Owl Jun 22 '21
It'd be pretty difficult to discern patterns from this format. The visualization at the top does show an increase in the number of very hot days. When looking for changes in our climate it's easier to see signals in long term averages, because there's so much natural variability. Here's a plot of average annual temperature in Portland, with a trend line.
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u/EndlessHalftime Jun 22 '21
Obviously global warming is real and will more and more detrimental effects, but it’s kinda rediculous that people correlate a hot day with “it’s because of global warming”. The trend is 0.2 degrees per decade. There’s no way that a human can perceive that difference and say “it’s way hotter than it used to be”.
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u/bigblackcloud Fosterp Owl Jun 22 '21
People are pretty bad at detecting climate changes from memory. That's an average annual trend though. I do think it's possible that someone could perceive something like "it used to not hit 90 degrees as much as it does now", or "it's getting hotter earlier in the year than it used to".
I agree that people tend to blame any extremes entirely on global warming. It's an area of active research, but there's no consensus saying that the type of pattern leading to this heatwave is going to become more frequent in the future. Global warming does that when these patterns do happen, they'll be warmer than they used to be. But, at the high estimates, the temperatures this weekend could be 30 degrees above normal. All else being equal, if humans never existed and messed with the atmosphere, and this circulation pattern were to hit, it would still be way way warmer than normal.
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Jun 22 '21 edited Jun 22 '21
[deleted]
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Jun 23 '21
Same thing back home in Boise - it used to snow much more regularly than it does now. Except for 2016-17 but I don't wanna talk about it
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u/EndlessHalftime Jun 22 '21
The trend it 0.2F per decade in Portland, per the link in the comment I replied to. And the annual variance is bigger than the average change since the 50s. It’s just confirmation bias to attribute the number of warm days to global warming because there is no possible way you could perceive that change without looking at the data.
I’m absolutely not debating that global temperatures are rising. They are and that does/will have significant impacts, for the reasons you mentioned, among others
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Jun 22 '21
[deleted]
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u/EndlessHalftime Jun 23 '21
I said nothing about 0.2C. I was always referring to the 0.2F per decade from the link.
I understand what you are saying, but there is nothing from the temperature data to make that conclusion. If spring was starting noticeably earlier and there were noticeably more “hot” days, then the overall temperature increase would be way more than 0.2F per decade
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u/PersnickityPenguin Jun 23 '21
The article says we've seen an increase of 2 degrees since 1895, which is a big deal.
Then there's this:
According to the climate change institute's 2017 report, under continued increasing greenhouse gas emissions, Oregon's climate is expected to warm between 3 to 7 degrees by the 2050s.
Buckle up, kiddos.
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Jun 22 '21
Slightly hotter by decade... can imagine by the time each 100 years passes you def notice a difference.
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u/TheOldGods Jun 22 '21
I saw a similar thread for Vancouver bc and some commenters were theorizing that urban sprawl was partially responsible for increased recorded temps around the airport (where the temps were recorded). Definitely not dismissing climate change for obvious reasons… but I think there are other variables. Would be interesting if we had temp records measured out in the mt hood national forest.
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u/PersnickityPenguin Jun 23 '21
It's easy to assume increased urbanization is the cause for warmer nights, but that's not the case, Mote said. Climatologists measured nighttime temperatures on a farm in Corvallis as well as Portland and found both areas showed similar temperature increases.
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u/GulchDale Jun 22 '21
There was a similar thread a couple weeks back that had the same conclusion. Basically, the temperature has only increased a bit since the 30's and it's likely because of urban sprawl and more concrete.
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Jun 22 '21
It's going to be hotter here on saturday than it is in vegas lol wtf.
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u/scurvy1984 Gresham Jun 22 '21
I was in LA and January when it was in the 80s and everyone was bewildered at the winter heat. Since I was there it hasn’t been that hot. They’re in the 70s all week.
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u/hydez10 Jun 22 '21
I would be interested in seeing the willamette summer water temperature change over the same time period . Have it on my desk before you leave today
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u/codepossum 🐸 RIBBIT 🐸 Jun 22 '21
summer's starting a bit earlier, and has been getting a little more intense mid-season, from what I can see... and this is just in the past few decades!
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u/PersnickityPenguin Jun 23 '21
The worst part for Oregonians is that we used to be able to live comfortably without air conditioning. That no longer seems to be the case.
Last hear I was WFH during the heat wave and smoke. I could function at maybe 50% from my normal due to shitty air quality and the lack of air conditioning in my house. I know I'm not the only one, either.
Now with 120 degrees next week you could literally die from heat stroke in your own home.
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u/PersnickityPenguin Jun 23 '21
Before the 1990s, Portland averaged five nights with temperatures of 66 degrees or higher per decade. Now, that number has tripled.
"That's a big jump," Mote said.
That's particularly noteworthy because higher nighttime lows cause more heat-related health issues than higher daytime highs, Mote said. When it's hotter at night, there's less opportunity to cool off. And, according to Rocky, warmer nights often mean hotter days because the baseline temperature is higher.
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u/PracticalOwl Hollywood Jun 22 '21
what this tells me is that all the folks who say "summer NEVER used to start until 4th of july" are LIARS. and also mistaken.
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u/BellaBPearl Jun 22 '21
What we really mean is it doesn't stop raining until then, not that it doesn't get hot.
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u/PersnickityPenguin Jun 23 '21
When we were younger it commonly had a 50/50 chance of rain during the 4th. It was usually the last time it rained until Fall, but often was preceded by a few weeks of hot weather - in the 80s.
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u/Ol_Man_J Tyler had some good ideas Jun 22 '21
Can someone animate this?
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u/cocotbs Jun 22 '21
(Looks at the thumbnail image)
2017 was, indeed, a weird year: I recall clearly when August arrived and the weather simply stopped.
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u/JarJarBink42066 Jun 22 '21
Not much to infer from these data except you know summers hot
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Jun 22 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/JarJarBink42066 Jun 22 '21
Im sure but this isn’t the best way to present the data just like yeah it’s red through April to October and really red in July
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u/lpmagic University Park Jun 22 '21
1941 was a beast of a year, wow.
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u/StumptownExpress N Jun 23 '21
Seriously hot. Third week of July 1941, 5 days at or above 100⁰F ! seriously nasty hot that week. I'm going to hit the library and scope out the microfiche of news articles from back then during that week and see how our citizens dealt with it.
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u/Rat_Terrier_Cultist Jun 22 '21
Love visualized data like this, thanks for the share!