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Both Inland southern California and the inland plains of Victoria and NSW have large diurnal ranges in summer, with low temps in the 50's and 60's but highs of 90F or more. In winter on clear days, temps can drop into the 20's F in NE Victoria, with afternoon highs in the 60's.
Hayfork’s summer figure is amazing: I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world! Usually large diurnal ranges go up to a lower high due to high altitudes where the heat from a hot sun is not retained at night, as in Lhasa or Flagstaff which illustrated a maxim of my brother that “if 15[˚C] is as warm as it gets, it’s cold” (in Lhasa and Flagstaff the average low is about freezing). However, in Hayfork it goes from very hot in the day to quite cool at night - I imagine you could not light a fire in the morning to warm up as everything would just burn in the low humidity!
Hayfork’s summer figure is amazing: I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world! Usually large diurnal ranges go up to a lower high due to high altitudes where the heat from a hot sun is not retained at night, as in Lhasa or Flagstaff which illustrated a maxim of my brother that “if 15[˚C] is as warm as it gets, it’s cold” (in Lhasa and Flagstaff the average low is about freezing). However, in Hayfork it goes from very hot in the day to quite cool at night - I imagine you could not light a fire in the morning to warm up as everything would just burn in the low humidity!
Hayfork does have a lower high due to altitude. Another 100 or so miles to the east at near sea level:
Seems like the inland US west coast at moderate elevation has the highest diurnal range. Any other place in the world (besides Oregon, obviously) with similar patterns?
Seems like the inland US west coast at moderate elevation has the highest diurnal range. Any other place in the world (besides Oregon, obviously) with similar patterns?
I had a look in the area, and in fact higher locations (Cecilville being the highest with data) do not have a larger diurnal range than Hayfork, suggesting that a “frost hollow” effect may be the cause of the huge diurnal ranges in subcoastal California.
These large diurnal ranges are not, in my view, tough to live with – in fact in my view the number of minima above 20˚C (68˚F) and above 25˚C (77˚F – for me the ideal number would be zero) is a better guide to the quality of a climate than the more conventional measures of high maxima. When nights are cool, one can sleep easily, whereas as I can testify from living in the horrible equatorial lowland climate of Singapore, when it does not fall below 25˚C one just cannot sleep!
Still, Hayfork blows them both away. Good find! I agree, there must be come sort of cold air drainage thing going on.
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