Manilla’s Hot Days to June 2015

Log of annual hot days in 16 years This post updates a similar one by including three more years to make a total of sixteen. It is in the same format as a recent post on Manilla’s frosts. Because the summer, which has the most hot days, crosses from one calendar year to the next, I have begun each year at July. I have called days warmer than 35° “hot days”, and days warmer than 40° “very hot days”.

Note added.

I have analysed the pattern of hot days in more detail in a later post “Hot days and ENSO”. By finding the relative frequency of hot days in all of the hotter months, I show that there is a cyclic variation related to ENSO. The cycle period is near 1.5 years, not 3 years as the log of annual frequency of hot days (above) suggests.

Graphical log of hot and very hot days

The first graph is a log of the number of hot and very hot days in each year. The three years with the most hot days had almost the same number: the year ’02-’03 had 41, the year ’09-’10 had 44, and the year ’13-’14 had 43. The two years with the fewest were ’07-’08 which had 5, and ’11-’12, which had only 4. The 13-year average is 26. Counting only the very hot days, ’03-’04 had the most (6), and four years had none at all. On the average, two days exceeded 40° in a year. (These are thirteen-year averages, not updated.) The number of hot days per year seems to have a cyclic pattern, with a period that increases from two years to four years during this short record. This is just a curiosity. The pattern of hot days has a lot in common with the pattern of smoothed monthly temperature anomalies for all months. These are plotted here, on a graph that relates them to ENSO. The relation of Manilla daily maximum temperature to ENSO was quite close from 1999 to 2011, but failed almost completely since mid-2011. In the earlier post on frosts, no cyclic pattern can be seen, nor any relation to ENSO.

New Record hottest days

In the sixteen years, there have now been 37 days hotter than 40 degrees: that is, 2.4 days per year. It remains true that December has fewer very hot days than November or February. A new record was set on 12/1/2013 by a daily maximum temperature of 43.2 degrees, beating the 42.6 degrees of 20/11/2009. This record was broken again on 3/1/2014, with 43.7 degrees. In the latest year, the hottest day (41.1 degrees) ranked only 12th, and it was not in summer, but in November.

Three new annual graphs

Continue reading

Manilla’s Hot Days

I have used my 13-year weather record to find the number of hot days in each year and in each month. Earlier I did the same for frosty mornings. Because the summer, which has the most hot days, crosses from one calendar year to the next, I have begun each year at July.
I have called days warmer than 35° “hot days”, and days warmer than 40° “very hot days”.

Total hot days

The first graph shows the number of hot and very hot days in each year. The most hot days were in the year ’09-’10, which had 44; the fewest were in the year ’11-’12, which had only 4. The 13-year average is 26, but the number of hot days is quite different from year to year.

Counting only the very hot days, ’03-’04 had the most (6), and four years had none at all. On the average, two days exceeded 40° in a year.
Hot days each year, and seasonal distribution.

Months with hot days

The second graph shows how the number of hot and very hot days peaks strongly in January, with very few earlier than November or later than March. On average, Manilla’s summer has about 22 days warmer than 35°, while spring has 3, and autumn only 1.


The other graphs show how each year had a different pattern of hot days. The highest monthly peaks, each 19 hot days, came in January 2003 (following drought) and January 2007. Annual peaks also came in January in 2008 and 2012, but these peaks were extremely low: only 4 and 3 hot days. Continue reading

November 2009 – Extreme Heat

The daily weather log

Weather log November 2009

November 2009 broke records for heat at any time of year in the last decade:
Highest daily maximum temperature: 42.6° on 20/11/09;
Highest daily minimum temperature: 27.8° on 22/11/09;
Highest weekly average: 31.3° for 17-23/11/09.
The daily maximum on the 20th was a record 13.5° above normal, and the daily minimum on the 22nd was one of only three nights over 13 degrees above normal.

 Comparing November months

Climate November 2009

Mean monthly temperatures were the highest on record for November: mean daily maximum 34.3° (5.2° above normal); mean daily mean 26.0° (4.6° above normal) mean daily minimum 17.8° (4.0° above normal). The early morning Dew Point (10.9°) was normal, but hot air brought the Relative Humidity down.
Rainfall of 33.4 mm recorded on the 9th was welcome, but little fell later. In all, five rain days totalled 40.0 mm. This total is low: in the 28th percentile for November. Most totals for more than one month are fairly good but a severe shortage (3rd percentile) affects the 9-month total (266 mm).


Data. Rainfall data is from Manilla Post Office, courtesy of Phil Pinch. Temperature and other data are from 3 Monash Street, Manilla.