Hi Jen,
For some time I’ve been popping in to your blog to relate my region’s monthly weather extremes, based on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s own records. The highlight was always the mean monthly maximum, since every month had its hottest max between 1910 and 1919, with the exception of August, which was hottest in 1946. These are the records as they have stood for many years on the the Elders website under Kempsey climatology. http://www.eldersweather.com.au/nsw/mid-north-coast/kempsey
No more!
The hottest months by mean max have all been changed. Every single one. If you look at the fine print, you’ll find the explanation: the temp data is now from 1965 to 2010. No doubt the BOM can adduce good scientific reasons for this…and who reads fine print anyway?
So there you have it: our searing decade around WW1 has not been eliminated from memory by any Orwellian measures.
It’s just been taken off the page.
If a careless reader might think those were cooler times – his own fault!
To add to the perfectly legal distortion, our rainfall records extend from 1882 to 2010, so a careless reader might think the temp records also fall within that period. The only downside of this for the BOM: all our monthly records for drought were set between 1882 and 1957. I wonder when all that will be removed from the page, with a little fine print in explanation.
Thought this might interest.
Appreciate your work mightily.
Rob
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.