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Vancouver, WA - dubious weather data


Omegaraptor

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While looking at Wikipedia weather data, I notice something off about Vancouver, WA. Not sure if this is just Wikipedia being inaccurate, but here is the Portland table: 

 

Screen Shot 2018-10-23 at 5.01.32 PM.png

 

and here is the Vancouver, WA table:

 

Screen Shot 2018-10-23 at 5.02.09 PM.png

 

Assuming Vancouver uses the Pearson Field, the stations are less than five miles apart. Yet somehow, Portland averages 3ºF warmer year round, and 5ºF warmer in the summer. Even SeaTac airport, right next to a cold body of water, somehow gets higher average summer highs than Vancouver, WA.

 

Vancouver somehow gets 182 days with measurable precipitation every year, more than Seaside on the coast and 28 more than Portland. It also somehow gets 6 more inches of rain every year.

 

Something is fishy here. The data claims to be NOAA, but what's going on?

 

Any other stations with weird data like this? 

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That temperature data for Vancouver is just wrong... particularly in the summer months.

 

Not sure about precip... I know Battle Ground gets way more precip annually than Portland so there might be incrementally more as you go north.  

**REPORTED CONDITIONS AND ANOMALIES ARE NOT MEANT TO IMPLY ANYTHING ON A REGIONAL LEVEL UNLESS SPECIFICALLY STATED**

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While looking at Wikipedia weather data, I notice something off about Vancouver, WA. Not sure if this is just Wikipedia being inaccurate, but here is the Portland table: 

 

attachicon.gifScreen Shot 2018-10-23 at 5.01.32 PM.png

 

and here is the Vancouver, WA table:

 

attachicon.gifScreen Shot 2018-10-23 at 5.02.09 PM.png

 

Assuming Vancouver uses the Pearson Field, the stations are less than five miles apart. Yet somehow, Portland averages 3ºF warmer year round, and 5ºF warmer in the summer. Even SeaTac airport, right next to a cold body of water, somehow gets higher average summer highs than Vancouver, WA.

 

Vancouver somehow gets 182 days with measurable precipitation every year, more than Seaside on the coast and 28 more than Portland. It also somehow gets 6 more inches of rain every year.

 

Something is fishy here. The data claims to be NOAA, but what's going on?

 

Any other stations with weird data like this? 

 

The summer average highs are certainly too low.  I think the winter extreme lows are too low also.

Death To Warm Anomalies!

 

Winter 2023-24 stats

 

Total Snowfall = 1.0"

Day with 1" or more snow depth = 1

Total Hail = 0.0

Total Ice = 0.2

Coldest Low = 13

Lows 32 or below = 45

Highs 32 or below = 3

Lows 20 or below = 3

Highs 40 or below = 9

 

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The summer average highs are certainly too low.  I think the winter extreme lows are too low also.

 

The extreme lows are accurate. The summer high temp data is off by several degrees.

 

These are the numbers from the official NCDC observing station for Vancouver, which since 1966 has been located at 78th Street about four miles north of downtown Vancouver (so about 7-8 miles from PDX)

 

https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?wa8773

 

Vancouver, particularly the outlying parts such as where that station is located, has much colder lows than PDX or downtown Portland. On the order of 4 to 8 degrees on a typical clear night. In the cold season during a strong east wind event it really isn't uncommon for the calm parts of the Vancouver area to be 10 degrees colder than PDX at night.

 

Clark County is also wetter than PDX. Here locally, annual precip increases by about an inch for every mile you go north or east from PDX. However, those figures on the number of precip days look wrong.

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