My 2 favorite recent years of one of my favorite Southeast US locations to monitor weather of: Tallahassee. This is of the literal cold hole airport, which since my May-June 2021 re-entry into climatology has been disappointingly nothing but 8b winters and November/March (or even freak October!) first/last frosts. Thankfully there is FSU Tallahassee, which has a higher elevation and is within the city's urban heat island, has performed at least partially well (9a+ winter, December+ first frost, February- last frost) in literally all seasons since recording began in June 2014, and fully well in all but 2 - I may make it its own thread when I find out what its best years were.
Anyway, for the cold hole airport, I took a look at earlier, actually well-performing years that I either wasn't monitoring seriously enough in to see (2015) or had been away from climatology during (2020).
The results are in and boy are they good
! I'll be rating on the basis of weather monitoring, but everyone else can feel free to rate on either the basis of weather monitoring or how they would enjoy the weather.
Attached for comparison is the 1991-2020 normals, it should be obvious how I rate these years compared to said normals but feel free to rate these years relative to them too!
Overall I would say both 2015 and 2020 get an A-A+, with the following specifics:
-Both get A+ for first and last frost monitoring, they fall entirely within the listed well performing criteria and I seriously wish these kinds of first/last frost dates were what it got on a regular basis so it could have a permanent place on my monitoring list.
2015 provides a longer monitoring window than 2020 by a full month though (February 20-December 20 vs February 28-December 1), mostly by virtue of a later first frost.
-Both get an A+ for coldest temperature of the year, neither drops colder than solid 9a -6C. What's more, those 9a temperatures in both cases are the coldest temperatures of the 2 winters they are either exiting or entering, and both are either exiting or entering a 9b winter as well.
-Both get an A+ for number of frosts. 2015 had 15 frosts, and 2020 had 17, which are both much less than the 1991-2020 median of 26.
-Both get an A for monthly averages (as in highs, means, and lows), all but one month (February 2015, December 2020) are above to well above average. Some monthly average records are also broken, like the warmest April, November, and December (2015) and the warmest March on record (2020).
Plus April and October of both years provide the kind of summer weather I want in my Dfa/Dfb humid continental climate, so it's fun to see them getting my summer weather while I'm in spring and fall. Would have been an A+ if February 2015 and December 2020 were above averages too.
-Both get an A+ for annual average temperature because it is decently above normal. 2015 does better in this regard than 2020 though, with a 22.1C average (warmest year on record in fact) compared to 2020's 21.4C average.
-Both also get an A for monthly maxima, most months are well above average in this regard - even approaching or breaking monthly record highs.
Like the averages, would have been an A+ if it applied to all months. The months below normal in this respect were January and February 2015, and December 2020.
-Besides the monthly minima within the November-March first/last frost monitoring timeframe I already covered, both get an A+ for monthly minima. The 9-10C October minima are a fabulous step up from not only the normal of 4.2C but the freak -1C this October, the 13C April 2015 minimum is fun to see being 2.2C above both the normal April 1 low of 10.8C+monthly low of 12.4C, and even the 7C May 2020 minimum adds fun variety to weather monitoring because Tallahassee airport is frostproof in May (record low 1C), so well below May weather can be enjoyed instead of fretted about.
Plus the 22C July and August 2020 minima are pleasingly reminiscent of tropical Fort Myers' normal 21.9-22.4C minima for these months (despite Tallahassee airport's identical July daily means to South Florida, lows can be noticeably cooler due to radiational cooling, so this is fun).
-2015 gets an A+ for precipitation while 2020 gets a B. I like seeing both how much Tallahassee can deviate from and adhere to the Florida standard of strong wet summer/dry winter given how it's about in between strong wet/dry and year round/other patterns, and 2015's precipitation (summer not especially wet with September in particular being quite dry, but November being by far the wettest month despite it normally being the dryest) is more zesty variety than 2020's (standard wet/dry summer).
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