Best website for historic low temperatures

[Cody Salem]

I've been lurking at this website for years and decided that I should start doing some posting.  I wanted to share what I have found to be the easiest place to find data historic low temperatures across the U.S.   It's pretty obscure, so I doubt many of you have seen it before.  

https://wrcc.dri.edu/summary/sodusa.html

First choose your state,  then you will see a list view and map view of all the available stations.

 

 

 

 

Some stations have more complete data than others, so you might have to check a few of them.  Even though the website format is a little outdated,  the data is auto-generated, so all of the stations that are active will show updated information every month.  

 There is lots of fun stuff here if your a weather junkie, but for most people you will want scroll down and click on "Extreme Minimum" on the left side of the screen.

 

 

 

 

This brings up the data table with the lowest temperature recorded in each month that the station was operational.  

 

 

 

 

If you scroll down to the bottom, you will find the annual mean low temperature.  This will be the number that determines your USDA zone based on all the years that data was recorded.

 

 

If you know some basic statistics,  you can condense down the data and just use the more recent numbers to figure your global warming USDA zone.

One side note;  the annual low temperature is located on the right side.  This is broken down by calendar year, so you might have to look back and forth between years to find the low temperature for that winter.

 

Hope you find this interesting, please post your own recommendations if you have another favorite site. 

 

[Bill H2DB]

Thank you .

[ahosey01]

Been using this site for a while but some of their data is suspect.  Where I live - Wickenburg - it says we average an extreme minimum of 19F over the last 30 years - 8b.  My neighbor, who keeps good weather records, said the coldest he's ever recorded in our neighborhood was 17F in the 2007 freeze, and 19F in 1991.  I've been here 4 years and never seen lower than 25F, and we live in the coldest part of town.  Every single year they have records for, the extreme minimum is reported as 24F or lower. Something doesn't jive.

The "average minimum" records seem fairly on point, though.