You probably won't believe this, but decades ago the NWS significantly changed the rules for stations recording temperatures. The old rules required so many square feet of open grassy area, a minimum height above the (possibly sun-warmed) ground, so much shaded area for the weather instruments, and so on. The new rules tossed all those requirements into the bin. Obviously, the result was a significant shift toward higher recorded temperatures.
I looked for that information last year, but couldn't find it. It was from pre-internet days, so it's pretty much also prehistoric. It was also, it seems to me, about the time the weather Chicken Littles were shifting from panic about the imminent ice age to global warming.
I remember that because it made the local news because a weather recording station had recently been set up, using the old rules, at considerable cost to the city. People in the city government were unhappy about the money they'd just wasted. (How times have changed!)
Wow, if I only had the video clip from that old local TV news story.
Again, it's like 1984 outside. I remember facts that have apparently been erased from our society!
