Sky Harbor NWS temps - representative? (Phoenix, Scottsdale: calculation, live in, airports)

[motormaker]

Weather Underground shows 15 reporting stations in the Phoenix area.

[Burning Madolf]

Originally Posted by motormaker

Weather Underground shows 15 reporting stations in the Phoenix area.

I 2nd this. My neighbor is an Underground reporter or whatever they are called and he has quite the set up. His info is much more relative to me in the west valley than the temps at Sky Harbor.

[ElleTea]

My weather app pulls from whatever location i set it to. I put in my zip code for home or let GPS find me to get current weather. If you put in a city without specifying a zip, it chooses the official one for the city which is often the airport.

[Adamson865]

Originally Posted by FirebirdCamaro1220

I think Sky Harbors results can be "inflated" from time to time, I use the Scottsdale Airport (KSDL), I think it is more truly representative of the whole valley

Thanks to Weather Underground, I ran numbers for 2016 YTD for Palm Springs, Phoenix and Scottsdale airports, and Scottsdale airport has an average high 3.3 degrees lower than Sky Harbor, and an average low 1.8 degrees lower. KSDL is roughly 400' higher in elevation than KPHX, which probably helps a bit.

Average High: KPSP 92.29, KPHX 91.37, KSDL 88.07
Average Low: KPSP 65.85, KPHX 67.51, KSDL 65.68

What I can't speak to is whether KSDL's temperatures are "more truly representative of the whole valley", but it's an interesting result.

[hikernut]

Sky Harbor is smack in the middle of the metro area, so yes the temperatures reported there will be close to what "central" dwellers experience.

In many metro areas the airport is on the edge of town or even outside of the metro area... Portland for example. That's not true for Phoenix.

[Valley Native]

I've noticed the daytime high temperature readings at Sky Harbor tend to be hotter than MOST parts of the metro area ... however, the exception seems to be the SW Valley, especially in the summer months. When it's 110 at Sky Harbor, it can easily be 112 or so in the SW suburbs like Avondale, Goodyear, and Buckeye. The lower elevation contributes to this difference.

The greatest difference is in the overnight lows. Sky Harbor definitely has the warmest low temps of anywhere else in the Valley, and this is especially noticeable in the winter months. On the coldest winter night, it could be 35 degrees at Sky Harbor, but easily at or below freezing in many of the suburbs, and even colder than that in the more exurban areas (especially higher elevation areas like Anthem, Carefree, and Fountain Hills).

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

I've noticed the daytime high temperature readings at Sky Harbor tend to be hotter than MOST parts of the metro area ... however, the exception seems to be the SW Valley, especially in the summer months. When it's 110 at Sky Harbor, it can easily be 112 or so in the SW suburbs like Avondale, Goodyear, and Buckeye. The lower elevation contributes to this difference.

The greatest difference is in the overnight lows. Sky Harbor definitely has the warmest low temps of anywhere else in the Valley, and this is especially noticeable in the winter months. On the coldest winter night, it could be 35 degrees at Sky Harbor, but easily at or below freezing in many of the suburbs, and even colder than that in the more exurban areas (especially higher elevation areas like Anthem, Carefree, and Fountain Hills).

Actually, the foothills have the warmest absolute low temps for the valley most years due to temperature inversion. The South Mountain and Superstition foothills (although unpopulated) are Zone 10B compared to Zone 10A for most of the valley "inside the 101" and 9B for the outer suburbs and open desert

[Adamson865]

Originally Posted by hikernut

Sky Harbor is smack in the middle of the metro area, so yes the temperatures reported there will be close to what "central" dwellers experience.

In many metro areas the airport is on the edge of town or even outside of the metro area... Portland for example. That's not true for Phoenix.

I grew up in Portland - we used to marvel at the frigid low temps at PDX compared to downtown. Then I experienced it again when I lived in Sacramento, where the official reading came from Sacramento International, which was out in the middle of a field miles away from town.

But there also can be issues regarding placement of the reporting equipment which has the potential to skew temperature readings. Sea-Tac built a third runway in the mid '00s, and after that the NWS sensor started reading warmer high temperatures in summer because the sensor was next to a concrete runway, vs. before when it sat next to a gentle slope that had vegetation on it. (The sensor didn't move; they leveled the slope with infill and built a runway on top of it)

I do wonder why Scottsdale's airport temperatures are 3-4 degrees lower than Sky Harbor's. Is it solely due to 400' difference in elevation or is there a placement factor in play in either location? Now that I've bored the entire board I may have to ask a serious-graduate-level weather geek on that one.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by rah62

I grew up in Portland - we used to marvel at the frigid low temps at PDX compared to downtown. Then I experienced it again when I lived in Sacramento, where the official reading came from Sacramento International, which was out in the middle of a field miles away from town.

But there also can be issues regarding placement of the reporting equipment which has the potential to skew temperature readings. Sea-Tac built a third runway in the mid '00s, and after that the NWS sensor started reading warmer high temperatures in summer because the sensor was next to a concrete runway, vs. before when it sat next to a gentle slope that had vegetation on it. (The sensor didn't move; they leveled the slope with infill and built a runway on top of it)

I do wonder why Scottsdale's airport temperatures are 3-4 degrees lower than Sky Harbor's. Is it solely due to 400' difference in elevation or is there a placement factor in play in either location? Now that I've bored the entire board I may have to ask a serious-graduate-level weather geek on that one.

Sky Harbor is one big mass of concrete AND in the middle of the city, that has to explain how warm it is

[mcsangel2]

I grew up about 7 miles away from the airport, and yes, their temperatures are indicative of those in that area.