{"id":3806,"date":"2011-08-04T06:20:56","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T12:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/?p=3806"},"modified":"2011-08-04T06:30:27","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T12:30:27","slug":"questions-arise-about-use-of-dia-weather-station-location-far-from-city-invalidates-historical-comparisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/thornton-weather\/questions-arise-about-use-of-dia-weather-station-location-far-from-city-invalidates-historical-comparisons\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions arise about use of DIA weather station; Location far from city invalidates historical comparisons"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 299px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/weather-in-denver\/the-fallacy-of-denver-s-climate-records-weather-station-move-skews-data\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Hot or cold: Denver's problematic weather records\" src=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/image_full_width\/hash\/hot-or-cold-denver-weather-records.jpg\" alt=\"Hot or cold: Denver's problematic weather records\" width=\"299\" height=\"224\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hot or cold: Denver&#39;s problematic weather records.  (Denver Weather Examiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Does a move of 12 miles make a difference in what type of weather is seen in Colorado?\u00a0 Longtime residents know that our weather can vary greatly over short distances and this has many questioning the placement of Denver\u2019s official weather monitoring station.<\/p>\n<p>From 1871 to 1949 Denver\u2019s weather was recorded at the National Weather Service\u2019s office in downtown Denver.\u00a0 In January 1950 a move was made to Stapleton International Airport.<\/p>\n<p>As that facility aged Denver opened Denver International Airport on the plains northeast of Denver in 1995.\u00a0 The weather service followed suit and moved the Mile High City\u2019s official weather station the 12 miles to DIA.<\/p>\n<p>Since that time, many weather watchers have noticed problems \u2013 DIA is consistently warmer and drier than the old site at Stapleton.\u00a0 Further, its remote location gives conditions far from where most people in Denver live and thus doesn\u2019t accurately represent what they are experiencing.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Get the complete story on Examiner.com &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/weather-in-denver\/the-fallacy-of-denver-s-climate-records-weather-station-move-skews-data\">The fallacy of Denver\u2019s climate records: Weather station move skews data<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Even bigger issues arise when comparing weather data taken today with measurements previously recorded at Stapleton or downtown.\u00a0 The different microclimates of the sites are so different that it becomes much like comparing apples and oranges.<\/p>\n<p>This was recently made evident with the string of 90 degree or warmer days we put together.\u00a0 If you went by the station at DIA, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/noaa\/consec90.php\">the streak lasted 18 days<\/a> putting in a three way tie for the second longest streak in Denver history.\u00a0 However, no monitoring station closer to the city was as warm.<\/p>\n<p>Further, while July was certainly a wet month, DIA\u2019s precipitation measurements fell far short of most other locations.<\/p>\n<p>Amid concerns about a warming climate, can we trust the measurements at DIA?\u00a0 How is it possible to compare the weather today with historical weather when there is such a large discrepancy?<\/p>\n<p>We recently tackled this topic on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/weather-in-denver\/tony-hake\">Denver Weather Examiner<\/a> and the conclusion is obvious \u2013 It simply is impossible to correlate current weather records with Denver\u2019s historical ones.\u00a0 Further, the National Weather Service seems intent on ignoring the issue.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/weather-in-denver\/the-fallacy-of-denver-s-climate-records-weather-station-move-skews-data\">Get the complete store here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Does a move of 12 miles make a difference in what type of weather is seen in Colorado?\u00a0 Longtime residents know that our weather can vary greatly over short distances and this has many questioning the placement of Denver\u2019s official weather monitoring station. From 1871 to 1949 Denver\u2019s weather was recorded at the National Weather &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/thornton-weather\/questions-arise-about-use-of-dia-weather-station-location-far-from-city-invalidates-historical-comparisons\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Questions arise about use of DIA weather station; Location far from city invalidates historical comparisons<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,7],"tags":[237,299,530,224,22],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3806"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3808,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806\/revisions\/3808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}