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Comment by tdeck | Hacker News Reader

Here's a more thorough description of their research:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/...

> First, the temperatures reported in Death Valley when the record was set were “not consistent” with weather observed in the same region at the same time

> Second, neighboring weather sites did not post temperatures that were unusually hot.

> Third, Reid and Burt assert the weather observer at the time, Oscar Denton, was inexperienced and may have even fudged the numbers. “The heat wave in July 1913 was the first such he was ‘in charge of’ as an official COOP observer..."

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From the National Park Service: "During the heat wave that peaked with that record, five consecutive days reached 129° F (54°C) or above."

https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/nature/weather-and-climate.ht...

In fact, the temp broke 125F for a stretch of 10 days in a row.

So there was a well documented, well published record of a heat wave going on in Death Valley at that time. It is not impossible just because someone wants to FUD 100 years later.

From Chris Stachelski on NOAA's website:

"Weather observations in the modern record at Death Valley began at the Greenland Ranch in 1911." So the observer had more than 2 years of consistent recordings before this record was hit. He was not "inexperienced".

https://vlab.ncep.noaa.gov/web/nws-heritage/-/one-hot-weathe...

Death Valley has extremely unique geography.

From Andrew Palmer, meteorologist, in Monthly Weather Review (1922)

"The temperature of 134° F. recorded on July 10, 1913 is believed by meteorologists to be the highest natural air temperature ever recorded with a tested standard thermometer exposed in the shade under approved conditions."

(Below copied from PDF, with link below which has excellent analysis of why Death Valley is so unique)

"The excessive heat of Death Valley is easily expldned. Situated \\-ell to the south of the summer storm tracks, there are no alternnting weather conditions such ns characterize the passage of HIQHS and LOWH. It is a typical solar climate, solar insolation being the c.hief control. During the long summer days the air is escan- sively heated by the high sun, as there is too little mois- ture in the air to permit the formation of clouds. Esc~s- sive heating causes a$cenrling currents, and nir sli s place of air rising over the valley iloor. The air w1iic.h slips down the IiiountrLin slopes is heated dynaniica.llp as it descends. The winds are local nnd convectional. The desert sand, gravel, rocks, nnd salt arc so highly heated durinw the lon days t1ia.t they do not have 01’ or- The cumulative effects of theso various agencies ro"

https://journals.ametsoc.org/mwr/article/50/1/10/87157/DEATH...

Article from 1922 even includes a photo of the weather station at Greenland Ranch.

ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/docs.lib/htdocs/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-01-0010.pdf

Sorry, not buying the FUD.

The original article from Burt has much more info: https://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/an-invest...

- “About September 1912, Oscar Denton replaced Thomas Osborne as the Greenland Ranch USWB COOP weather station observer. Denton, of San Diego, began signing the USWB COOP forms in September, but the first form with data in his handwriting was December 1912. Denton served as the observer, caretaker, and foreman of the ranch for the Pacific Coast Borax Company until mid-August, 1920. Thus, Denton’s first full summer as the weather observer was the summer of 1913.”

- “When rain fell at the ranch, recorded amounts were almost invariably in the amounts of 0.01”, 0.10”, 0.20”, and 0.30”.”

- “There were occasional periods when the daily maximum and minimum temperatures would take on a persistent and rather unnatural numerical pattern.”

- “These instances suggest that Denton may have been just ‘filling in the blanks’ for days when he missed taking the observations.”

The original article list many other issues.

All in all it seems Denton wasn’t the most professional observer. Obviously 100 years later anything is difficult to proof, but it seems very likely that not enough care was taken when recording the numbers.

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