“Hot in Cleveland” isn’t just a cancelled television show or a terrible Tinder bio anymore, it’s an apt description of our current climate.
Thanks to a new interactive feature provided by the New York Times, readers can compare how many days, on average, cities across the country could expect to see temperatures of 90 degrees or more in the year you were born compared to today. Checking out the results of Cleveland make climate change a hell of a lot harder to deny.
50 years ago, a Clevelander born in 1968 could expect to experience one day of above 90 degree weather. The New York Times anticipates a 300 percent increase with four above 90 degree days. It’s important to note that this estimation of four is an average based on history and climate trends.
The reality is that Cleveland has already experienced nine days above 90 degrees since June. Compared to 1968, that’s an increase of 800 percent.
The Times’ projections target an average of 15 90-degree days by the 2070s in Cleveland, and that’s probably on the low end. By 2050, Cleveland could see as many as 30 per year.
18 Cleveland schools closed today due to the heat as well as the Elyria City Schools and two others in Akron. We’re not expected to see a cool-down until the third week of September, meaning our number of 90-degree days is likely to continue growing.
This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2018.
One day of 90 a year? The average number has NEVER been that low. Not even close! It’s always been somewhere around eight or nine or ten days between May and September. Maybe twelve, tops. Far less than Chicago, which has a couple dozen every year…sometimes twice that number.Your math is WAY off.
For starters, we have had 19 days of 90 since late May, not nine. Also, nine of something, versus one, is 900 per cent more…nine times more…not 800 per cent. It’s nine TIMES one, not nine MINUS one. I’m no math whiz, either. If I were, I’d have become a meteorologist. Couldn’t handle the higher math involved.
Go talk to someone at NWS Cleveland, or one of the more knowledgeable TV weather people at Channels 3, 5, or 8. They will tell you the same thing. ONE day a year, even in ’68, is ridiculously low. Totally wrong.
Today will be our 20th 90-degree day this summer, one more than last year’s total. Two years ago, we had 29. In 2012, one of the hottest summers ever in this country, we had 28. In 2005, there were 22, and 20 in 1995, 2002, and 2010. The all-time record was 37 (1952 and 1955), followed by 36 in that horrible summer of ”88…when it hit 104 here. In June. All those numbers in the twenties and even thirties…does that sound like the average could ever have been ONE? Hell, no!
I know you mean well, and are trying very hard to succeed. But you need to do some research and homework before you start typing, especially where statistics are involved. Figures don’t lie.
Get used to it BJ. Youre going to hell anyway for never missing a chance to spoil things for every one. Youll wish for 90 degrees where you are going.
Channel 3 just pointed out that this decade (the 2010s) has seen more September days in the 90s than any decade since the 1950s. Last year, we had a record SIX IN A ROW. Was BJ here for that? I don’t think so!
And back then, school was NEVER called off because of hot weather OR cold (and not all that often for snow, either). Schools had NO air conditioning…not even the new ones built for the Boomer influx, and certainly not the old ones. I know…I lived through all that. i remember starting school when it was a hundred degrees one day. In a new school! With NO shades or blinds! Like being a bug under a magnifying glass.
I don’t think she’s spoiling things for everyone, just misleading them. If hell is the punishment for that, a lot of people in high-places will be shoveling coal very soon. But I hear it’s crazy cold way down there. And the sun never shines. Much like what we will be dealing with all too soon.