May 24, 2010 in City, Idaho

Record low of 32 set at Spokane airport today

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Cool spring weather continues across the Inland Northwest with a record low of 32 at Spokane International Airport this morning.

Forecasters said they do not see any kind of big warm up through this week.

This morning’s weather began with a freeze warning from the National Weather Service, and many locations saw cold temperatures. Spokane International Airport had a temperature of 32 degrees, which breaks the old record of 35 set in 1975. The airport warmed to 40 degrees at 7 a.m.

Coeur d’Alene dropped to 28. Cheney saw a low of 25 and the National Weather Service office near Airway Heights had a low of 28.

Elsewhere, temperatures at 7 a.m. were mostly above 32 degrees, but a few locations were at or below 32, including Cheney and Priest Lake.

Highs today are expected to reach 62 degrees in Spokane and 63 in Coeur d’Alene with isolated showers after 11 a.m.

Sunday’s high in Spokane was 58 degrees, which is 10 degrees below normal for today.

Forecasters said Tuesday should bring mild and partly sunny weather with highs near 70, but a new Pacific storm arrives on Wednesday and raises the risk of rain or showers to 70 percent by Wednesday night.

Showery weather is likely to persist through Saturday and dampen the start of the Memorial Day weekend.

Despite several days of summer-like weather at the middle of the month, May has averaged 2.4 degrees below normal so far.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated that the low this morning was 33.

Eight comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  mickrussom on May 24 at 10:03 p.m.

  Why focusing on CO2 and AGW is silly.
  
  - The greatest contributors of warming/cooling are ocean surface flux, heat flux, humidity and clouds. Also one must consider light input and planet wide albedo as well as magnetosphere strength. CO2 has a very low overall impact. Insulators (such as CO2) have a non-linear diminishing return in terms of efficacy. The more CO2 that is put up, the less insulating effect it will have per unit.

  - Modern CO2 level is as at 400ppm.

  - Precambrian CO2 was 4500 ppm, Oxygen @ 12.5%, temp +7C modern.
  - Ordovician CO2 was 4200 ppm, Oxygen @ 12.5%, temp +2C modern level.
  - Carboniferous CO2 was 800ppm (over double today), yet it has a nice Oxygen level at 32.5%. Also, temperatures were the same or slightly lower than today’s temp.
  - Jurassic CO2 1950ppm, 26% O2 and ~ 3C above modern. (That’s about 5x today’s CO2, more oxygen, similar temps).
  - Cretaceous CO2, 1700ppm, O2 @ 30%, temps about 4C higher. This is the realm of the greatest biodiversity the world has ever seen. Lots of oxygen, lots of CO2 but no man-made AGW. Imagine living in an atmosphere with this much oxygen - Olympic records would certainly fall. Lots of CO2 around to feed plants and create biodiversity.
  - Neogene to modern. Where we are today. Most of the atmospheric oxygen loss (about 8% of the total) occurs before industrialization. It must also be noted the AGW scientific activists use the last 800,000 years and not the entire neogene period to show trends.
  - At no point, even with many times the current CO2, did the greenhouse effect run away like it has on Venus.

  It seems to me that people should consider planting trees that produce a lot of O2 out of normal CO2 respiration. That would help albedo and do more for the world than any attempt to prevent CO2 changes. Build nuclear power plants (lots of them) and try to get to fusion as soon as possible. Then pollution (everything BUT CO2, which is plant food) can finally slow down. Things like MTBE, metals (mercury, cadmium, arsenic, etc), PDBE, BPA, etc, etc. CO2 is the last thing to worry about .

• 

  Skeptic on May 25 at 7:52 a.m.

  “mick russom’s” numbers are interesting, but I don’t know if there’s any validity to them.

  What is more interesting to me is that this morning’s temperature in Spokane is national news on the right wing, “there is no anthropogenic global warming” blogosphere. That circuit has professional posters who get paid for pretending to be local readers.

  It is populated almost entirely by non-scientists, however, who are too dumb to know the difference between climate and weather.

• 

  Skeptic on May 25 at 8:54 a.m.

  My guess was right.

  Mick Russom has posted anonymously, but mainly under his own name, endless repetitions of exactly this post. In just a minute’s searching, I note he posts at Mother Jones on 1/27 followed by many other (i.e., 2/3, 2/12, 4/14, 4/21, 4/22, 4/23, 4/24) duplicates, a substantial portion of them being on right wing wowser sites (i.e., Breitbart, Mens News Daily).

  In none of those posts, of course, is there any attribution of his figures, nor are there quotes from stories that would tend to dismiss his contentions,

  On his website a prime source for his stuff is the certifiably crazy radio and YouTube conspiracist, Alex Jones, who couldn’t spot an actual conspiracy if it bit him on the butt.

  There is also no hint on his website that he knows enough about climate to be able to pack intelligently for a trip to Australia.

• 

  jnsesq on May 25 at 9:01 a.m.

  Paging Al Gore. Paging Al Gore. Send Spokane memo. Send Spokane memo.

• 

  Coffee on May 25 at 10:19 a.m.

  The question should be are the facts presented true or false not that they have been re-posted on other web-pages. But here are some facts you can take to bank. 1. Mount St. Helens will erupt again 2. Most everyone reading this will be dead and forgotten within 20 to 50 years. 3. Unless man can manage to get to other worlds we are doomed as a species. 4. If spacemen from other worlds land here you better kill and eat them before they do the same to you.

• 

  cwhitlat on May 26 at 7:24 p.m.

  I believe “Skeptic” posted several intellectually-dishonest “ad hominem” attacks against another poster, “mickrussom”.

  Too bad. An intellectual, scientific discussion addressing the facts would be preferrable.

  Insults and demagoguery are the domain of the abundant small-mindedness that occurs in foreign, reppresive domains such as North Korea and Iran. I can see how dishonesty and aggression are linked to personal attacks. The behavior has a history.

  I did some checking of the stated facts: (Can you say the same?)

  Ordovician: his numbers are correct.
  Carboniferous: his numbers are correct.
  Jurassic: his numbers are correct.
  Cretaceous: his numbers are correct. (Not that long ago, on an earth time-scale.)

  I would say that “mickrussom” has some credibility, and that you “Skeptic” do not.

  I am a professional engineer and graduate student pursuing an advanced degree. I am not a professional poster.

• 

  libmark on May 30 at 9:01 p.m.

  cwhitlat and micrussom, respectfully asking for citations to original research. Could you please provide them?

• 

  cwhitlat on June 12 at 1:54 p.m.

  Hello libmark,

  To check whether mickrussom’s temperature and atmosphere analysis estimates for past earth eons were “even in the ballpark” of accepted scientific thought, I did the simplest and easiest thing possible, I Googled and searched in Wikipedia, and this is what I found: (Check for the data in the upper-right, on each page.)

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordovician
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous

  None of this is my own original research. If it were, I would have written a paper and subimitted it to (and published, hopefully) in a peer-reviewed journal.

  I do not mind if you wish to take issue with Wikipedia. However, through my university science library, I have access to search a vast number of recent, online periodicals and journals. I would be happy to comment on, and check, any citation that you may offer.

  Sincerely,
  cwhitlat