• My UNC Charlotte

  • Directory

  • Campus Events

  • Library

  • Prospective Students

    • About UNC Charlotte
    • Campus Life
    • Admissions
    • Graduate Admissions
  • Faculty and Staff

    • Human Resources
    • Auxiliary Services
    • Inside UNC Charlotte
    • Academic Affairs
  • Current Students

    • Athletics
    • Financial Aid
    • Advising
    • Student Health Center
  • Alumni and Friends

    • Alumni Association
    • Advancement
    • Foundation
    • Make a Gift
Dr. Brian I. Magi
Dr. Brian I. Magi
Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences
  • My UNC Charlotte

  • Directory

  • Campus Events

  • Library

  • Prospective Students

    • About UNC Charlotte
    • Campus Life
    • Admissions
    • Graduate Admissions
  • Faculty and Staff

    • Human Resources
    • Auxiliary Services
    • Inside UNC Charlotte
    • Academic Affairs
  • Current Students

    • Athletics
    • Financial Aid
    • Advising
    • Student Health Center
  • Alumni and Friends

    • Alumni Association
    • Advancement
    • Foundation
    • Make a Gift
  • Welcome!
  • Teaching
    • Air Quality (ESCI 3220)
    • Physical Meteorology (METR 3220)
    • Statistics and Data Analysis in Earth Sciences (ESCI 4122/5122)
    • Global Environmental Change (ESCI 3101)
    • Atmospheric Chemistry (ESCI 4220 / ESCI 5220)
    • Climate Dynamics (METR 4205 / ESCI 5205)
    • Atmospheric Thermodynamics (METR 3210)
    • Applied Climatology (METR 4150 / ESCI 5150)
  • Research
    • Air Quality
    • El Nino
    • Climatology
      • Southeast Climatology
      • USA climatology
      • Campus Weather
    • Fire and Lightning
  • Publications
  • Presentations
  • People
  • Prospectives
  • Opportunities

Contact Me

Brian Magi
brian dot magi at charlotte dot edu

Email is the best way to contact me. My office is McEniry 232, and my mailing address is below.

Geography and Earth Sciences
UNC Charlotte
McEniry 331
9201 University City Blvd
Charlotte, NC 28223-0001

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Remembering the warmth with temporal averaging

October 15, 2012 by Brian Magi
Categories: Earth System Observer

It’s been cool in North Carolina and in Charlotte in August and September 2012, as I talked about on one of my posts. In that post, I said that if you really want to know whether the temperatures you are experiencing are representative of the bigger picture, you can “zoom out” from the city level (or Climate Division) to the state level and even to the country level. This is easy with the NCDC website which archives USA climate data. Another way to think about the temperatures in a particular month (like September 2012) is to zoom out in time. In other words, take a longer time average to see whether the temperature averaged over the last few months or even the whole year are at all like the temperature you are experiencing in the here and now. (we’re still talking about monthly temperature, not the weather).

Using figures that you can get at NCDC, I made the animation above. The figure shows the temperature averaged over progressively fewer months (starting with 12 months up to Sep 2012 and going down to just Sep 2012). I think the data in the figure shows that the temperatures departures over the last year (Oct 2011 to Sep 2012) in North Carolina were dominated by unusually large warm anomalies back in the winter months, from about Oct 2011 to Mar 2012. Starting in May 2012, the temperature anomalies in NC were below average, but these below-average temperatures we’ve been experiencing are swamped by the above-average temperatures from the what we did experience (but may have forgotten). When you look at the trend in the country as a whole, and focus on the Oct 2011 to Sep 2012 image when it pops up, you can see that most of the country is very warm compared to average.

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
Tags: global warmingNCDCRecord warmthspatiotemporal analysisUSA

Click for more  

UNC Charlotte Homepage

Campus Links

  • Alerts
  • Jobs
  • Make a Gift
  • Maps / Directions
  • Accessibility

Resources

  • Alumni & Friends
  • Faculty & Staff
  • Prospective Students
  • Community
  • Current Students
  • Parents and Family

Stay In Touch

facebook instagram flickr linkedin twitter youtube maps

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
9201 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223-0001
704-687-8622

© 2017 UNC Charlotte | All Rights Reserved
Contact Us | Terms of Use | University Policies
Skip to toolbar
  • Log In