Hot in June - Imagine That

The news this weekend will be full of stories of the heat wave which will hit the East Coast and how global warming is ravaging the planet. There are other areas which may experience record highs, such as these:

* 110º Millsboro, Delaware

* 100º Pahala, Hawaii

* 109º Monticello, Florida

* 118º Keokuk, Iowa

* 111º Phoenixsville, Pennsylvania

* 120º Seymour, Texas

* 121º Steele, North Dakota

* 117º Medicine Lake, Montana

Sounds pretty bad, huh. Since man has been shoving more and more CO2 into the atmosphere temperatures have no where to go but up.

But wait, there's more! I left a little something off that list above. Those are record temperatures but not the expected highs this weekend. They are records from the past:

* 110º Millsboro, Delaware, July 21, 1930

* 100º Pahala, Hawaii, April 27, 1931

* 109º Monticello, Florida, June 29, 1931

* 118º Keokuk, Iowa, July 20, 1934

* 111º Phoenixsville, Pennsylvania, July 10, 1936

* 120º Seymour, Texas, August 12, 1936

* 121º Steele, North Dakota, July 6, 1936

* 117º Medicine Lake, Montana, July 5, 1937.

Those numbers come from an book excerpt written by a TV meterologist who is not a globaloney enthusiast. You can read it here. It's good stuff.

He also includes a story from his TV weatherman days:

“105° tomorrow? We’ll be sending you out live,” the television producer informed me.

Like most TV Meteorologists, I loathed the heat wave live-remotes. I would much rather work in a controlled environment, complete with air conditioning and a green Chroma-key screen. And during extreme weather events, the studio lent itself to professionalism rather than playing on emotion.

“Let me guess, the bank in Walnut Creek?” I said sarcastically. I had been through this drill many times.

“Perfect location. Plus, a lot of viewers with ratings meters out there.”

Walnut Creek is an upscale town 30 miles east of San Francisco. It is sheltered from the cooling influences of the coast and the Bay by a modest mountain range. As a result, in the summer that region can bake. The bank not only referenced the name of the town, but had a thermometer that was several degrees off, thanks to the heat absorbing black asphalt on the adjacent multi-lane street and the pavement of the nearby parking lot. The producer knew 105° would easily read 110°. On air, I always quickly explained the reason for the soaring temperature reading for our audience, but it was not enough. The misleading visual message was absolutely clear: 110° in Walnut Creek-another sign of climate doom! No doubt about it, the climate was under assault. It had to be global warming.

No, it’s global whining.

Even without the bogus bank thermometer, a heat wave-or even a hot year-does not indicate global warming. More important, such weather does not point to any warming created by mankind’s utilization of fossil fuels. But telling that to the stooges on Capital Hill who are debating energy policies like Cap and Trade is like trying to tell the TV producer not to mislead the audience by sending the weatherguy to the bank thermometer in Walnut Creek.

There will be a lot of that kind of reporting this weekend.