New webtags suggestion

[RayProudfoot]

Hi Steve,

Would you consider adding two new webtags please to this year and all-time records? The dates of the earliest and latest air frosts.

I appreciate these will be different for northern and southern hemisphere stations but I'm sure you can work out how to do it.

For northern hemisphere stations it would be the first date after the summer solstice and the last date before the summer solstice when the air temp drops below 0. But you knew that of course.

Many thanks.

[steve]

Yes, I could probably add that at some point; it's an interesting statistic. I'm not sure the summer solstice is the correct cut off date, though? If I had a frost on June 23rd, I'd consider that late, rather early.

[RayProudfoot]

Good point. July or August tend to have the highest temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere so perhaps 1 August could be a better choice. It's difficult to pick an ideal date especially for stations close to the Arctic / Antarctic Circle.

Maybe 1 August / 1 February but can be configured by the user?

[steve]

Maybe 1 August / 1 February but can be configured by the user?

Yes, that's what I was thinking.

[RayProudfoot]

Maybe 1 August / 1 February but can be configured by the user?

Yes, that's what I was thinking.

Great minds!

[mcrossley]

Equinox(eseses)?

[RayProudfoot]

Equinox(eseses)?

That's an alternative but as close as possible to the warmest/coldest time of year would be my choice. A user-configurable date leaves everyone happy.

For the record my earliest frost was 24 October 2010 and the latest 13 May 2010.

[RayProudfoot]

We had a really cold night for September. I recorded a low of 1.3C but Mark down the road got down to 0.2C!

No doubt there are stations that dropped below zero so using 1 August / 1 February might be the better choice for the starting point rather than the Equinoxes.

[mcrossley]

Aye, good ground frost here this morning.