Temp hits hottest ever, faculty weather observer reports
Everyone knows it’s hot, and according to a Shippensburg
University faculty member the official temperature Friday was the hottest ever
recorded in Shippensburg.
Dr. Timothy Hawkins, associate professor of geography and
earth science and a local weather observer, said the official high temperature
for Friday (July 22) was 104.6 degrees and will be recorded as 105 degrees. The
previous record was 104 degrees reported on July 9, 1936; Sept. 2, 1953;
and July 16, 1988. He said when humidity was factored in, it felt like it was
128 degrees.
The previous record for July 22 was 99 degrees in
1955. The record for July 23 is 101 degrees set in 1991 and the record
for July 24 is 97 degrees set in 2010. The temperature yesterday (July 23) was 101 degrees, tying the 1991 record.
Weather observations from the campus reporting station are
available online at http://webspace.ship.edu/weather. Hawkins noted that the real-time data
available on the site is not official. Official measurements of maximum
temperature, minimum temperature, precipitation, snowfall, and snow depth are
made manually on a daily basis though, he said, official and unofficial
measurements are very similar but do differ slightly.
Weather information has been kept at Shippensburg University
since 1934, though weather observations in Shippensburg since 1910. The
university recently received the “50 Year Honored Institution Award” from the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is “in grateful recognition of
50 years of weather observations in cooperation with the National Weather
Service.”
According to NOAA, an Honored Institution Award is given to
an institution in which several people have taken dedicated daily weather
observations over a period of years.
The weather observations, in addition to be shared with NOAA
and other agencies, is also used in agricultural planning, municipal planning,
hydrologic forecasting, facilitating student and faculty research projects
in meteorology, climatology, hydrology and ecology, and allowing students to
use the station to enhance classroom experiences through hands on assignments
using real-world data.
7.24.11