What a Turkey!

For my regular WeatherTalk blog readers who have hopped over here, you may have already guessed what I am talking about today. For the rest, it's definitely not yesterday's meal of choice. This actually goes back to Wednesday, when a guy at my gym started talking about how warm it was, and how he remembered riding his bike in the snow in October. I'll get back to that later, but here is what prompted it: Wednesday was warm. We hit 73F. The record high in Baltimore was 79F in 1900. What was the heat blamed on then.? Yesterday- Thanksgiving, and the high was 74F- still not a record. That was 76F. Although we were close, it was warmer when that was set in 1940! Again, warmer a long time ago and not used a fodder for a theory. Yup we are in warmer times, and humans have polluted the planet. But there are much greater forces at work in this chaotic system we call weather and climate. Still looking at the stats shows that. Now back to my new friend at the gym. He's 52, so that would date back over 40 years - in the 1960's. We I checked the records, and there is only a handful of days with snow for October in Baltimore. There were two days with just a trace - in 1952. Likely it was on the grass and not enough to pedal through on the streets.
Regardless, this guy was not my concern, since we had a reasonable chat about the actual cycles of warm and cold years. I noted that the 1930s and 1940s still hold the majority of heat records around here, while the mid 1940s- 1960s turned quite cold for all of us (globally). A second guy pop his head around the corner and made some snide remark- but as soon as I gave him some hard stats he walked away. Only minutes later he would strike back- mainly with his memory and his parent's memories of colder times. When I offered my email and a proper exchange of information, he responded with, " I don't need to see YOUR science to know the truth". It's that kind of ignorance that befits the label - TURKEY! No need to finish the entire exchange here, but he did say that he is worried for his children. Well, I have a 2 year old son. I'm more worried that his classmates will get bad information in school. My old Climate Page on WeatherTalk has more information. Below is a recent report from John Stossel on 20/20 showing this: