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Old 10-14-2011, 08:36 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SophieLL View Post
wow, in my mind Usuahia is one of the coldest places ever (never been there though) all people that went say how brutal the cold is. Now that i know winters are like NY winters im not gonna be as scared as go there as i was before.

Mind you, summers are also very cold in usuahia.
Lol, the coldest I've ever been was -23°C in St. Louis, Missouri (it was nighttime). I used to live in the northeast part of my state that it would get that cold for a brief time but not every year. I think in Missouri it's more common since it's the Midwest.
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Old 10-14-2011, 08:41 PM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

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Location: Western Massachusetts
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wavehunter007 View Post
No doubt the two biggest landmass on the planet – Asia and North America are the kings of extreme temps in the world.

However, one of the interesting things I’ve read about and even noticed - when you compare a Northern American station and a South American station - the differences in monthly mean temps decrease with decreasing latitude – especially in the cold season.
My hunch is that this is partly for geographic reasons. South America gets narrower at higher latitudes, so less continental. Eastern North America gets a bit wider as you go north and has the Gulf of Mexico at the south end to make it less continental at low latitudes but more continental at high latitudes.


Quote:
Your example of South Carolina above is a good one. Buenos Aries is on the coast – Columbia is not. However, if you find a station on the coast near the same latitude – you can see that monthly mean temps are not much different in the cold season. Take Buenos Aires and Charleston South Carolina –
Whoops. For some reason I though Columbia was on the coast; must have mixed it up with Charleston. Good catch.

But you could play around with South America too to find the best match. Montevideo is at about the same latitude as Buenos Aires but sticks out into the coast more. Cooler summers but similar winters.

Charleston is the warmest of the 3. I think once (a low latitude climate) becomes too maritime the average annual temperature goes down. For high latitudes, the most maritime climate almost always comes out the warmest.

Quote:
I remember Trewartha used to have an index in his text that used a set of numbers to measure what he called the “Index on Continentality”. Apparently, while the annual temperature amplitude was the greatest in Asia and North American…
I actually took out a book by Trewartha. The “Index on Continentality” is adjusted for latitude, since high latitude places naturally have more winter-summer differences (the amount of sunlight difference between winter and summer is much greater at high latitudes). So if a place at 41° and 34° had the same annual range, the 41° would score as having a lower continentality.

(If you're interested, the formula is [1.7*(Annual Temperature range in °C)/sin(latitude + 10°) ] - 14. It's designed so that the place with the highest number gets about a 100 (Verkhoyansk, Siberia) and the lowest gets a 0 (Thorshavn, Faeroe Islands).

But I plugged in the numbers and got a -1.1 for Thorshavn and -1.5 for Eureka, CA. Close enough, I guess.

Last edited by nei; 10-14-2011 at 08:55 PM..
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Old 10-14-2011, 08:43 PM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

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Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,204,802 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SophieLL View Post
wow, in my mind Usuahia is one of the coldest places ever (never been there though) all people that went say how brutal the cold is. Now that i know winters are like NY winters im not gonna be as scared as go there as i was before.
I think winters in Usuahia would feel much colder because the sun is low in the sky and it's much cloudier than NYC.
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Old 10-14-2011, 08:49 PM
 
Location: In transition
10,635 posts, read 16,608,146 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
My hunch is that this is partly for geographic reasons. South America gets narrower at higher latitudes, so less continental. Eastern North America gets a bit wider as you go north and has the Gulf of Mexico at the south end to make it less continental at low latitudes but more continental at high latitudes.




Whoops. For some reason I though Columbia was on the coast; must have mixed it up with Charleston. Good catch.

But you could play around with South America too to find the best match. Montevideo is at about the same latitude as Buenos Aires but sticks out into the coast more. Cooler summers but similar winters.

Charleston is the warmest of the 3. I think once (a low latitude climate) becomes too maritime the average annual temperature goes down. For high latitudes, the most maritime climate almost always comes out the warmest.



I actually took out a book by Trewartha. The “Index on Continentality” is adjusted for latitude, since high latitude places naturally have more winter-summer differences (the amount of sunlight difference between winter and summer is much greater at high latitudes). So if a place at 41° and 34° had the same annual range, the 41° would score as having a lower continentality.

(If you're interested, the formula is 1.7*(Annual Temperature range in °C)/sin(latitude + 10°) - 14. It's designed so that the place with the highest number gets about a 100 (Verkhoyansk, Siberia) and the lowest gets a 0 (Thorshavn, Faeroe Islands).

But I plugged in the numbers and got a -1.1 for Thorshavn and -1.5 for Eureka, CA. Close enough, I guess.
Wow.. that's really cool! Index of continentality.. I wonder if you missed a bracket in the formula cause I can't seem to get -1.1 or -1.5
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Old 10-14-2011, 10:17 PM
 
Location: Bellingham, WA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Weatherfan2 View Post
It doesn't have to be hot and sunny though. What about cold but sunny. I can get not liking heat but not liking the sun? Un-natural.

What room temperature do you call comfortable? 40°F? 0°F? Nobody truly finds those types of temperatures comfortable or they would live through the winter without a second thought about heating and there'd not be any reason to wear coats hats or scarves or much clothing at all in the coldest days of winter.

Part of my liking of warm temperatures is that I don't have to think about that to be comfortable.... I could just wonder in and out without thinking of needing extra clothing. Yet you have to pile on layers of this that and the other to be comfortable or spend more money on heating bills to be comfortable... yet claim you like the cold.




Did you find a medical problem? It is not normal for a healthy person to get heat stroke at air temps of 26°C!
I'm okay with sun as long as I'm not out in it, or it's very cold. Even when the temperature's not very warm I'm likely to sweat if the sun's out, and I HATE sweating. Also the sun burns my skin and hurts my eyes, and gives me a headache if I'm out in it for too long. I enjoy wearing long sleeve shirts, coats, and just heavy clothes in general. I also get warm very easily. The other day it was about 50 and cloudy and I went for a casual walk wearing jeans, a long sleeve tshirt, and a light, unlined jacket. After about 20 minutes I had to remove the jacket, and shortly after that I was already starting to sweat. If the sun had been out I would have had to remove the long sleeve shirt too.
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Old 10-14-2011, 10:23 PM
 
Location: Bellingham, WA
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And I forgot to mention, a comfortable room temperature to me is 64 or so. Outside if I'm wakling or biking, I'm very comfortable with temps down in the low 30s wearing just jeans, long sleeve shirt, and a jacket. Add a hat if it's really cold, and gloves if I'm on my bike.
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Old 10-14-2011, 10:31 PM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplight View Post
And I forgot to mention, a comfortable room temperature to me is 64 or so.
Meh. If it's any colder than that, I start to shiver a bit. Assuming I'm wearing short sleeves
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Old 10-14-2011, 10:32 PM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,204,802 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deneb78 View Post
Wow.. that's really cool! Index of continentality.. I wonder if you missed a bracket in the formula cause I can't seem to get -1.1 or -1.5
Hmm. I think I got it right. Some computer programs and calculators expect the angle in radians into the sine function. Any chance that's the issue?

Last edited by nei; 10-15-2011 at 08:13 AM..
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Old 10-14-2011, 11:21 PM
 
Location: USA East Coast
4,429 posts, read 10,319,661 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
My hunch is that this is partly for geographic reasons. South America gets narrower at higher latitudes, so less continental. Eastern North America gets a bit wider as you go north and has the Gulf of Mexico at the south end to make it less continental at low latitudes but more continental at high latitudes.




Whoops. For some reason I though Columbia was on the coast; must have mixed it up with Charleston. Good catch.

But you could play around with South America too to find the best match. Montevideo is at about the same latitude as Buenos Aires but sticks out into the coast more. Cooler summers but similar winters.

Charleston is the warmest of the 3. I think once (a low latitude climate) becomes too maritime the average annual temperature goes down. For high latitudes, the most maritime climate almost always comes out the warmest.



I actually took out a book by Trewartha. The “Index on Continentality” is adjusted for latitude, since high latitude places naturally have more winter-summer differences (the amount of sunlight difference between winter and summer is much greater at high latitudes). So if a place at 41° and 34° had the same annual range, the 41° would score as having a lower continentality.

(If you're interested, the formula is [1.7*(Annual Temperature range in °C)/sin(latitude + 10°) ] - 14. It's designed so that the place with the highest number gets about a 100 (Verkhoyansk, Siberia) and the lowest gets a 0 (Thorshavn, Faeroe Islands).

But I plugged in the numbers and got a -1.1 for Thorshavn and -1.5 for Eureka, CA. Close enough, I guess.
Yea, South America is far too narrow at higher latitudes to generate any real cold air – at least at sea level. Geographically, South America is wide in its tropical/subtropical latitudes and narrows in its temperate and high latitudes. The somewhat reverse situation is true in North America; as you go southward out of central Canada in temperate/subpolar latitudes the landmass gets smaller and by the time you reach subtropical latitudes the landmass is smaller. Technically the warmest area on the North American landmass – the central/southern Florida peninsula, is the narrowest - only 120 miles wide.

As far as the Index on Continentality formula - I vaguely remember something like that, but it was a long time ago. It seems to make sense, as annual temp ranges fall of course as you move closer to the equator anywhere on earth.

Of course annual ranges at different stations can often be greatly impacted – or give false climate impressions – when they favored (or unfavored) by geography, creating a seasonal extreme . These seasonal isoanomiles can really throw off the index of continentality: A location might have a very cold winter (maybe a highland station) or a very hot summer (maybe a low land desert climate), but the other 8/9 months have average temps for its latitude. Death Valley at 36 north it has fairly typical winter, spring, and late fall temps for its latitude – but the 125 F summer highs throw off the annual range, and thus its index of continentality. So the system, while interesting, has it flaws it seems.
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Old 10-15-2011, 12:14 AM
 
Location: Bellingham, WA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
Meh. If it's any colder than that, I start to shiver a bit. Assuming I'm wearing short sleeves
Oh I'm the same way, as long as we're talking about being indoors. Outdoors for whatever reason I can be comfortable wearing short sleeves down to at least 60, and that's assuming very little physical activity. If the sun's out I might even get too warm. I guess it's normal, but I always feel warmer outdoors than indoors at the same temperature. If the sun's out then it's obvious why, but otherwise I assume it's due to being physically active outdoors, even if it's just a little walking.
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