On Thu, 31 Dec 2015 11:34:38 +0000, Norman Lynagh
wrote:

On Thu, 31 Dec 2015 03:08:20 -0800 (PST), David Mitchell
wrote:

I referred to the 0900 recording time in a previous thread and really believe it's time to change.

Why? It's quite likely that quite a few sites will record there lowest temperature of December tonight, which in fact will not even happen on the same day, let alone in the same month or even in the same year.

For some, in some ways, it spoils a record breaking month.

I get the arguments for comparison purposes, but does it really make sense?

It does make sense if you use manual instrumentation rather than electronic. In
particular, the rain gauges in automatic weather stations, such as the various
Davis instruments, are a bit flaky. I find that mine under-reads by a variable
factor, usually in the range 10-20%, compared to what I measure with a standard
5" manual gauge.

The answer is to read the manual guage at midnight.

Lucky me, I am always up and about then and often not up and about at
9 am! I am therefore unlikely to achieve my lowest minimum for
December tonight, it's currently 7.2 and the number to beat is 3.0 deg
C on Dec. 9th. when I also had my one and only ground frost of the
month at -1.4 deg C.

--
Dave
Fareham (W)