Perhaps that’s the nerd’s credo. But we have nowhere to hide. We’re excited at a NOAA website that lists all sorts of extreme weather records in the United States, NOAA being one of those U.S. government agencies that is all in on climate change, Trump or no Trump. And since we’re told, including by NOAA, that climate change brings more extreme weather, it’s obvious that the weird stuff on this site would tend to be recent. So there’s the maximum temperature for Alabama in… wait a minute… 1925. In Alaska, with its famous recent heatwave, it’s in ‘15. As in 1915. In Arizona 1994. Arkansas 1936. So as you see, the last decade was the hottest since…

Shall we continue? We could. California 1913. Colorado 2019. That’s better. Good Colorado. Connecticut a tie between 1995 and 1916. Bad Connecticut. Delaware 1930. Stupid Delaware. But as our “1919 or 2019?” quiz has emphasized, there’s more to extreme weather than heat. So in Florida the record for precipitation in 24 hours was in … 1980. In Georgia 1994. In Hawaii 2018. So a trend toward more recent, right? Well, not in Idaho where it was in 1909. But why should we have all the fun?

You can visit the site and look for yourself. And find that in some places the record cold was long ago, for instance Illinois when it was 2019. Moving right along, in Indiana it was 1994. Wait. That’s not long ago either. In Iowa a tie between 1996 and 1912. Or look at Kansas where the record weight for a hailstone was set in 1970 (1.65 lb) as was the record for circumference of same (a whopping 17.6 inches). In Kentucky they don’t have that stat. But they have lots to look at. And endless fun trying to convince yourself weather’s been especially hot, or weird, since man-made global warming really kicked in whenever you think it did.