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Answer: At the Raleigh-Durham airport, the warmest minimum temperature on record is 78 degrees, which has occurred on several occasions through the years in the months of July and August. Over at the Wilmington airport, there have been at least a couple of occasions in August when the low temperature was an even "balmier" 83 degrees.
Nov. 24, 2009 | Tags: heat, records/extremes

Answer: If you take eight years literally and go back that far from the date this answer is being added to our database, then we have not fallen into the single digits at all during that span. However, if you reach back a little farther, the most recent occurrences of single-digit lows at the airport were in January 2000 in the wake of a major snowfall, when the temperature dipped to 1 degree Fahrenheit on the 28th and 7 degrees on the 29th.
Nov. 18, 2009 | Tags: cold, past weather, records/extremes

Answer: Climate records from the Raleigh-Durham airport do not show any snowfall in October, with the earliest trace of snow there reported on November 2nd, 1954, while the earliest measurable snow there was on November 6th, 1953, when .6" was recorded. A different station in Raleigh with a much longer period of record did record a trace of snow as early as October 24th, back in 1910.
Nov. 7, 2009 | Tags: past weather, records/extremes, snow

Answer: Records for those locations are posted at the Southeast Regional Climate Center Web site, available at www.sercc.com/climateinfo/historical/historical_nc.html. They show that for the Rocky Mount Experimental Station, with records stretching from 1914-2009, the highest reading was 106 degrees F on June 27, 1954 and the coldest was -8 degrees on January 21, 1985. The station at Scotland neck maintained records from 1872-1995. During that period, it was as hot as 105 on June 21, 1933 and as cold as -4 on February 1st, 1936.
Nov. 5, 2009 | Tags: cool sites, past weather, records/extremes

Answer: Climate statistics for the Raleigh-Durham airport indicate an average of about 73 days each year with a low temperature at or below freezing, while there are about 4 days per year with a high temperature at or below freezing. As a very simplistic first approximation, this would suggest about 69 freeze-thaw cycles. Of course, whether a specific location or material freezes solidly or thaws completely can be impacted by its location, exposure to open sky or lack thereof, its exposure to wind that might reduce the time required for the item to rise or fall to a changed ambient temperature, and the amount of time on a given day that the air temperature spends significantly above or below freezing.
Nov. 2, 2009 | Tags: cold, normals, records/extremes

Answer: From records stretching back to 1944, here are the lowest daily high temperatures that have occurred in each month, along with the years in which those unusually cool days were recorded. January (17 degrees F, 1972/1985), February (18, 1958), March (20, 1980), April (40, 1959), May (49, 1946/1992), June (59, 1967/1997), July (67, 1984/1997), August (64, 1981/1989), September (53, 1984), October (47, 1980), November (32, 1976) and December (19, 1983).
Oct. 28, 2009 | Tags: cold, records/extremes

Answer: The "normal" annual rainfall is just an average over a defined time period, that being the 30 years ending with the most recent "zero" year, and updated every ten years. Based on observed totals from the current "climate normals" period of 1971-2000 at RDU, the average yearly precipitation is 43.1 inches, and the standard deviation about that value is plus or minus 6.4 inches. This indicates that annual rainfall ranges between roughly 37 and 49 inches about 67% of the time, and between 31 and 55 inches about 95% of the time.
Oct. 1, 2009 | Tags: drought, rain, records/extremes, water resources

Answer: That reading you recalled of 77 degrees is oppressively humid in itself for this part of the world, and a level that is rarely reached. However, the State Climate Office carried out a records search that shows the Raleigh-Durham airport has recorded dew points of 80 degrees or higher on eight days since 1948. The only two days to reach above 80 were July 24, 1965, when the dew point held at 81 for three hours late in the day, and on August 10, 2007 when there was one observation, shortly after a brief shower on a very hot day, with the dew point spiking to a super-steamy 82 degrees.
Aug. 22, 2009 | Tags: humidity/dew point, records/extremes

Answer: Rainfall rates and amounts varied greatly across the area during that event, but there were places that received on the order of 3-6 inches of rain, mostly within a 6-hour or shorter time span. Based on information from NOAA's Precipitation Frequency Data Server, 3 inches in 6-hours for our area has about a 5-year return interval, while the 4 inches or so we received here at WRAL is about a 20-year event. Locations receiving 5-6 inches in so short a time experienced roughly 100 to 300-year rain rates.
Jun. 29, 2009 | Tags: flooding, records/extremes

Answer: There are a few states that have had very little tornadic activity, notably Hawaii and Alaska, while other states like Florida, Oklahoma, Indiana, Iowa and Kansas lead the nation in numbers of tornadoes per 10,000 square miles. However, there is no state in the union that has never experienced at least a few tornadoes.
Jul. 3, 2009 | Tags: records/extremes, severe weather, tornadoes