Thursday, May 19, 2011

Weathermaps from the 1920s...80s to the 40s!

Its been a while since my last post.  Too much current weather to deal with.  In any case, Friday the 13th, our high was 82. By Monday, temps were already in the 40s. So my mind started working:  When was the last time this happened this late in May?

It turns out that it was way back on May 24, 25 of 1925

I found a database of old weather maps online. Back on May 25, 1925, the surface chart from that day looked like this. Charts were created a bit different back then. Notice the "colder than normal" areas they noted.

 Even on May 2,3 of 1920 and again May 10,11 of 1902 when temps were in the 40s in May, the old maps looks very similar highlighting the "colder air"

 Here is 1902



The upper level maps for this week look like this. 

Back in 1966 when we had a stretch of 40 degree weather in May this long, the upper level pattern looked like this:

The upper level pattern on May 8, 1960, the first day of 5 days with temps in the 40s in May.  All of these maps show weather patterns that are eerily similar.