Sleuthing...

Alan Sullivan:

In a superb example of investigative journalism, meteorologist Anthony Watts pursues a single inconsistent dot on map of recent US temperature anomalies and discovers a relocated instrument station that is now corrupting the climate database. In several years of research, Watts has found such problem sites by the score. Perhaps it is time to re-run climate models, inputting only rural stations with well-documented continuity � if there are enough of them...

What Watts is doing is totally cool, not just meteorologically, but as an example of digging into things using online tools. Here's a sample, but it's better in the Original, with all the many pictures and maps...

A simple question; what is that red dot on the map? I was looking at the CONUS map browser depicting the 2008 temperature departure from normal provided by NOAA's High Plains Regional Climate Center and noticed something odd:

Note the red dot in Arizona, which is the only one in the USA. Truly an anomaly. At first I thought it might be University of Arizona Tucson and its famous parking lot station, but that is further southeast.

The other map depiction HPRCC offers also shows it, and narrows it to a single data point:...

....The new location is at about 500 Main Street, rather than the 1206 Main Street listed in the NCDC MMS database. Perhaps it has been moved to a new location and NCDC has not caught up with the street address change. Perhaps the lat/lon is off. Anything is possible as I and the surfacestation volunteers constantly find discrepancies and errors in the database.

So I decided to use the new Google Street Level View feature to snoop around a bit at the two locations. I found nothing at 1206 S. Main Street except a lot of grass and buildings. It looks like perhaps a community college:

But when I went looking around 500 Main Street - BINGO! I can spot both the MMTS sensor unit and the standard rain gauge to the west of the street:

Looking at an aerial view using NCDC's most current coordinates of 33.0363,-111.388 and Microsoft Live Search Maps, we can see what surrounds the sensor:....

Since the whole purpose of the global Warming religion is to put Leftists into power over horrid people like you and me, what Watts and others like him are doing is vital work.