A total of 116 record highs have been set in the Blacksburg CWA this year. I have been watching those statistics with great interest, and observing where most of those records have been taking place.
The following chart shows the number of record highs that have been set at 4 of the locations this year (through October 9), with the additional number of tied records in parenthesis.
Bluefield, WV: 48 (plus 5 ties, 53 total)
Blacksburg, VA: 22 (plus 4 ties, 26 total)
Roanoke, VA: 17 (plus 2 ties, 19 total)
Danville, VA: 10 (plus 4 ties, 14 total)
However, in Lynchburg, VA, just one record high has been set, and that didn't occur until October 8, just a couple of days ago. Not a single record high was set in Lynchburg during the hot period in August and September. (Lynchburg also tied 3 record highs.)
Why did Lynchburg just set one record high, while Bluefield set nearly 50? There are many possible explanations, some of which we probably haven't discovered yet. The NWS issued a statement several weeks ago, and attributed it at least in part to the fact that Lynchburg was farther from the source of the heat, located in the Central/Southern Plains. That is true, and could account for the fact that Danville (which is located farther east like Lynchburg) had fewer records than the other 3 locations. Still, given the fact that Lynchburg accounted for just 1 of the 98 new record highs across the region, I don't think that tells the whole story.
Instead, let's look back at how long the period of record is for each location. In Bluefield, records only go back to 1959, and the East in general saw an extended cool period which started around that time and continued into the 1980s or early 1990s. I'm not sure when records in the other 3 locations began, but I believe they all started around 1950, or possibly in the '40s.
But in Lynchburg, the climate record dates all the way back to 1893. Over 130 (more than one-third) of Lynchburg's daily record highs were set between 1930 and 1941, and all but two of them withstood this summer's heat. That makes it extremely obvious that it was warmer in Lynchburg in the 1930s than it is today.
Obviously, this fact in itself can't prove that the 1930s were warmer across the country than it is today. But, I think it does offer some very strong evidence in that direction.
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- Kevin
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