Date of Award

1-1-2011

Language

English

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

College/School/Department

Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences

Content Description

1 online resource (iv, 154 pages) : color illustrations, color maps.

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Lance F Bosart

Keywords

Heat waves, Heat waves (Meteorology), High pressure systems (Meteorology), Synoptic climatology

Subject Categories

Atmospheric Sciences

Abstract

The results of a statistical analysis of anomalously hot day and heat wave frequency in the United States (U.S.) are presented, along with a synoptic climatology of northeast U.S. heat waves (NHWs) for 1948-2001. This study used daily high temperatures retrieved from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) Daily Surface Dataset for 54 stations binned into the nine standard NCDC climate regions. Anomalously hot days were defined as when the daily high temperature exceeded the climatological 97.5-percentile temperature. Heat waves were defined as at least three consecutive anomalously hot days, whereas regional heat waves (e.g., NHWs) were defined as simultaneous heat waves at two or more cities within a region.

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