Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Hottest Cities?

Almost a week after publishing their "Best Places 2007" review on online, Money magazine has yet to correct the numerous factual errors contained in their report. According to Money, these are the 25 cities in their database with the highest average temperatures in July.

Global warming cannot account for the fact that all but two of these 25 cities were nowhere to be found in Money's 2006 list of 25 cities with the highest average July temperatures.

The rainfall data is even more screwed up than the temperature. A random check of a few cities I've lived revealed substantial overstatements of annual precipitation, by as much as 250%. Southern California would look as lush as the Pacific Northwest if the 40+ inches of rainfall attributed to cities throughout the region actually fell upon the parched earth there. (The actual number for most of Los Angeles and Orange Counties is about 14.)

[UPDATE:] About 10 days after I wrote to them about this, they finally corrected their error.

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