* 2,000 is the number of homes that were destroyed by wildfires early this year in SE Australia, mostly in February. Wildfires can be as devastating to people as a large tornado.
* 173 people died in those wildfires–many of them trying to outrun the flames. Over 7,000 were left homeless.
* 8 degrees was the difference in low temperatures this morning between Birmingham Airport and Pinson–a distance of only about 7 air miles. The low at Birmingham was 72. That means that I missed the low temperature forecast by 9 degrees. Shame on me.
* 3.03 inches was the final June rain total at Birmingham Airport. We still a 1/2 inch surplus for the year.
* 4.65 inches of rain in just the last 24 hours at Tampa as Central Florida continues to experience a very wet pattern.
* 8.05 inches of rain at Orlando during June. They are 5 inches above average for the year. They had measurable rain on 14 days–an average of every other day. There was 7 days in a row with measurable rain in the month.
* 10.06 inches of rain in New York City (Central Park) during June. That is more than double the average. They had measurable rain an astounding 19 days out of the 30 days. They also had a cool month with June averaging almost 4 degrees below average. In Upstate New York, Saranac Lake had measurable rain on 17 days during June.
* 117 degrees is the forecast high temperature in Baghdad today and 118 tomorrow. In contrast, only 77 is the forecast high for Oslo, Norway. That city gets an overdose of nice, pleasant weather.
* 29,028 feet is the elevation of Mt. Everest, clearly the highest anywhere on earth. Mountains have a distinct impact on weather and climate. While Everest is the highest elevation above sea level, is that the tallest mountain on earth? The answer is no.
* 33,476 feet is how tall Mauna Key is in Hawaii. However, that is measured from its base on the ocean floor to its very top.
* 39 degrees was the temperature on Mauna Key early this morning with a brisk NW wind. We get a report every hour. Their dew point was minus 9 giving a relative humidity of only 12%. Yes, they can have snow and Mauna Key can have a substantial in some storms.
* 121 in Death Valley was the hottest in the good old USA yesterday. That station holds the all-time record for our country of 134. That is within 2 degrees of the hottest ever recorded in the world.
* 18 inches of snow (yes, let’s shift gears) was on the ground during the period of February 13-18 in 1960 at Moulton in NW Alabama’s Lawrence County.
* 4.81 inches is all the rain that fell on Birmingham during a 5-month stretch in 1924 from July through November. It was one of the worst droughts ever. During that stretch, only 0.01 fell in a stretch of eight weeks. We all know that 0.01 will not even make you open your umbrella.
* 116 is the average number of days per year that the temperature reaches or exceeds 90 degrees in South Alabama’s Geneva County.
* 62 inches was how much snow was on the ground at Rogers Pass, Montana at the time they recorded the coldest ever in the lower 48 states of 70 below zero. Around 2:15 a.m., loud popping noises continued in the small mountain cabin where the NWS coop observer lived with his two elderly uncles. His name was H. M. Kleinschmidt. He was the official observer and he could stand the noise no longer. He slipped out of bed and dressed warmly and looked at his window thermometer showing 68 below zero. He made his way through the deep snow to the instrument shelter where the official thermometers were exposed and noticed that the liquid in the minimum thermometer had receded into the bulb. He made a mark on it. Bottom line: the instrument was shipped to Washington for lab tests and that is when the all-time low was verified.
* Bill Hagerty, another weather geek from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania that I had met by mail, and I visited Rogers Pass later and I made the only photograph in existence of the weather station. I have promised for a long time, especially to Matt Padget, that I would write the complete story of that never to be forgotten trip. I am still going to do it.
* 3.55 inches is how much snow fell at North Osceola, New York during the incredible winter of 1995-96. 144 inches was the amount for the Blue Hill Observatory near Boston and 208 inches at Sault Ste Marie, Michigan.
* 49 degrees is how much the temperature shot upward in only 2 minutes at Spearfish, South Dakota, in the Black Hills, on January 22, 1943. The temperature was 4 below zero at 7:30 a.m. and 45 at 7:32–only 2 minutes later. That sounds incredible, but it actually happened. The sudden changes in temperature back and forth caused many of the plate glass windows in town to break out. Blame it on the famous Chinook wind. There are many more examples of unbelievable quick changes. I plan to write a story about those later.
* 111 degrees was recorded in the summer of 1930 at Madison, located near Huntsville. That was within 1 degree of the all-time high for the entire state of Alabama of 112 at Centreville, Bibb County, on September 5, 1925.
* 3 cups is all the coffee I have had this morning. Let me get back to more important things.
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