Weather By The Numbers 12/18/08

* 54.18 inches is how much rain Birmingham has now received in 2008. The 0.17 in the last 24 hours pushed us over the edge to give us a “wet” year. (Well, that does not sound right. Instead let us say the year was a tiny bit wetter than average.) The average is 53.99.

* 27.36 inches is how much we had last year at this same time, do we doubled last year!

* 71 was the Birmingham high yesterday, 16 degrees above average.

* 80 is the warmest temperature ever recorded in the month of December in Birmingham. That was on December 7, 1951.

* 13 is the coldest “high” in December in Birmingham. That was on December 14, 1962.

* 116 hours is the longest stretch of temperatures remaining freezing or lower in Birmingham. That was in January, 1940 from the 23rd to the 28th. That was a very severe and “classic” cold wave. (I miss the term, “cold wave.” Not used anymore except possibly by me) During that bitter cold, there was ice skating on the Warrior River at Birmingport!

* 4 inches of snow yesterday at Twentynine Palms in the California Desert.

* 9 inches of snow at Joshua Tree in the same general area. The Joshua Tree National Park was closed to the public.

* 11 inches of snow at Mt. Charleston, west of Las Vegas. A true oasis or mecca in the desert. Mt. Charleston is about 25 miles WNW of Las Vegas. As you drive along highway 157 you will go from pure desert to alpine country at Mt. Charleston with Blue Spruce, Aspen and even Ponderosa trees. The elevation of Mt. Charleston is 11,919 feet as compared to 2,033 in Las Vegas.

* 4 inches of snow in South las Vegas reported by NWS employee. 3.6 inches at the NWS Office on Dean Martin Road.

* 14 below zero in Havre, Mont., this morning, an improvement over -33 a few days ago but still bitter cold.

* 27 below the coldest in the “Lower 48” this morning at Cook and Ely, Minn., coldest in Alaska was -28 at Northway.

* 4.49 inches is the average annual precipitation in Las Vegas. Compare that with 54 inches in Birmingham and over 66 inches in Mobile.

* 300,000 the estimated number of people who drowned in China in 1642 when rebels destroyed the Kaifeng Seawall. That was 366 years ago!

* 162 is how many days in a row that the temperature reached or exceeded 100 at Marble Bar, Australia between October 30, 1933 to April 7, 1924. Believed to be a world record.

* 17 inches of snow on the ground at Flagstaff Airport, in Northern Arizona. 23 inches on the ground at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

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