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Weather categorization — a useful tool for assessing climatic trends

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Summary

A computer-assisted weather categorization was applied to meteorological time series measured at the Milešovka Observatory (a mountain station) and Prague-Klementinum (an inner city site). Groups of winter days (December, January and February) with extreme mean temperatures were examined with respect to their frequency of occurrence and presence of any trends in the period 1941–1988. In general, frequencies of cold categories exhibited a decreasing trend, and frequencies of warm categories tended to increase. In both series a prominent negative trend in temperature amplitude was detected within warm clusters, related to a statistically insignificant decline in the maximum temperature and an increase in the minimum temperature. Additional analysis indicates that changes in circulation patterns occurred over the region during the period investigated, namely strengthening of zonal circulation in winter.

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Nemešová, I., Klimperová, N. Weather categorization — a useful tool for assessing climatic trends. Theor Appl Climatol 51, 39–49 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00865538

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