[HN Gopher] Tracking Heat Records in 400 U.S. Cities
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Tracking Heat Records in 400 U.S. Cities
 
Author : feross
Score  : 84 points
Date   : 2022-05-24 21:31 UTC (1 hours ago)
 
web link (pudding.cool)
w3m dump (pudding.cool)
 
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Interesting that the site uses ipinfo.io, an analytics service
| that brags about, among other things "Detect[ing] various methods
| used to mask a user's true IP address, including VPN detection,
| proxy detection and more." They appear to even offer a service
| designed to detect "privacy" users using tor and such.
| 
| I'm really curious why the site needs such invasive analytics.
| It's not by accident - it costs a minimum $1200/year.
 
  | thadk wrote:
  | I have interacted with this site and its ownership a fair
  | amount online. My guess would be they're trying to gauge true
  | interest in topics so they can refine their editorial
  | perspective.
  | 
  | And $100/mo might not seem so much if it can make debunking
  | interest-spoofing attempts more trivial, especially if there is
  | ever any kind of bonus to the visualization authors for having
  | a big hit.
 
| nextos wrote:
| This is cool, but why not using rigorous statistics?
| 
| Block maxima (e.g daily max temperature) follow a generalized
| extreme value (GEV) distribution.
| 
| One can try to see whether this distribution is stationary or
| not.
| 
| Things can get much fancier by e.g. modeling correlations across
| cities but the above is pretty basic.
| 
| A great practical intro is:
| https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4471-3675-0
 
| nope96 wrote:
| from the same site: The US has gone $days since a record high
| temperature
| 
| https://pudding.cool/2022/03/weather-map/
 
  | lisper wrote:
  | Would be interesting to have the same info for a record low.
 
    | tomjakubowski wrote:
    | Or for record high lows ("the low has never been this warm").
 
  | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
  | Given you have 400 samples a day, what is the baseline expected
  | days since record high temperature just based on statistical
  | variation?
 
    | derbOac wrote:
    | Presumably, if this is stationary, wouldn't record highs
    | decrease in frequency over time?
 
      | jgeada wrote:
      | Yes, if climate was static. It is pretty obvious that it is
      | not and the earth is warming.
 
      | inkeddeveloper wrote:
      | No, that's the problem. Record highs in single locations
      | are being set quite often.
 
| cc344 wrote:
| I think this is an interesting project, it does seem to present
| the information in a rather biased way. I'm not trying to dispute
| whether things are warmer, but I would like to better understand
| what the underlying data consists of. I know they have 148 years
| of data, so I'm curious how that data was collected even 50 to 70
| years ago let alone 100 years ago. There has to be a change in
| the quality of the data collection over time. It would be
| challenging to fairly compare data from the last 10 or so years
| to a similar timeframe 100 years ago. I would imagine data
| doesn't even exist in some of the cities.
| 
| Maybe people who have more expertise in the field or the data
| collection can chime in.
 
  | epolanski wrote:
  | > It would be challenging to fairly compare data from the last
  | 10 or so years to a similar timeframe 100 years ago.
  | 
  | Why? A thermometer works exactly the same it did 100 years ago.
  | For such a simple measurement like temperature I can't think of
  | many reasons why measurements from the 30s could be
  | significantly different (as in more than fractions).
  | 
  | I also guess that if the data was considered unreliable for any
  | reason it would not be used.
 
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Interesting new site here that lets you explore historic
| temperatures and trends:
| http://realclimatetools.com/apps/graphing/index.html
 
  | rektide wrote:
  | University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer is my trusted,
  | respected go to.
  | 
  | They have long time series:
  | https://climatereanalyzer.org/reanalysis/monthly_tseries/
  | 
  | They have wonderful daily difference-from-average "anomoly"
  | maps: https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#t2anom
  | 
  | I really dislike this site you've linked. The whole middle of
  | the chart is completely overwhelmed with data points unless you
  | zoom way in, until you can only see a decade or so. There's the
  | extreme data points of each year that stick out, but what's
  | actually happening most of the time is utterly occluded &
  | unclear. The data masks rather than informs.
 
| rangewookie wrote:
| The "story" being told doesn't have a clear through line. I
| didn't understand the context for anything. I also didn't see any
| of the information I wanted to see.
| 
| What was the hottest year? What was the year with the most broken
| records? What is the overall trend? It actually told me what the
| hottest day on record was, but there is so much to read I
| completely glazed over and missed it the first time.
 
  | [deleted]
 
| voz_ wrote:
| This is a very difficult to navigate site. I wish I had the data
| presented almost any other way. Which is a shame, because its a
| cool idea, w/ cool analysis.
| 
| You should open source the data.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | shagie wrote:
  | > You should open source the data.
  | 
  | The data isn't theirs to open source (or not).
  | 
  | > Temperature records are collected from ACIS, which tracks
  | weather for approximately 400 US cities. ACIS has data from the
  | ThreadEx project.
  | 
  | The ThreadEx project is http://threadex.rcc-acis.org
  | 
  | This suggests its using the data from a service that is
  | collected from http://www.ncei.noaa.gov which right on the
  | front has: Looking for Data?
 
  | [deleted]
 
| butwhywhyoh wrote:
| Why does this force me to scroll through this like a slideshow?
| 
| Anyone else reminded of the bad-old-days when Flash websites were
| common and broke all UI norms?
 
  | ModernMech wrote:
  | I think these kinds of sites are made by people who never
  | experienced that hell.
 
  | kilovoltaire wrote:
  | I assume it's based on the UI of Instagram Stories, which maybe
  | feels quite natural for some people (not me so much)
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | paulcole wrote:
  | No, I think it's really cool!
  | 
  | Their website, their decision on how to "force" you to
  | experience it. Remember, you can always close the tab if it's
  | not compelling or interesting to you personally.
 
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(page generated 2022-05-24 23:00 UTC)