On Aug 22, 10:46 am, Paul Hyett wrote:
In alt.global-warming on Wed, 22 Aug 2007, Eric Swanson
wrote :

19 August 2007

RECORD EVENT REPORTS FROM NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DATA

STATIONS SETTING (OR TIED) A NEW RECORD HIGH TEMPERATU

STATIONS SETTING (OR TIED) A NEW RECORD LOW TEMPERATU

In a country as large as the US, there's likely to be records set
*somewhere* every day - especially where the station has a short record.
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham

The number of records broken should be roughly inversely
proportional to the logarithm of the number years involved. I became
aware of that when I started attending a new high school, many years
ago. The first year there was naturally a new school record
established in every event. Assuming a random distribution of
student abilities, the second year, there would be a roughly 50%
chance of any prior record being broken, the third year there would
be a roughly 1 in 3 chance of a prior record being broken, and now
that my former high school is about 40 years old, there'd be a
roughly 1 in 40 chance of a record being broken- probably somewhat
higher since the
area has grown in population and there are more students attending the
school now.
In a similar vein, with temperatures rising on the average, record
highs should be somewhat more common than the logarithmic rule, record
lows should be somewhat less common. Likewise, with average
temeratures falling, the converse should be true- A. McIntire