00:00So we're always in the world of weather forecasting, but also weather
00:04statistics. We need to be able to quantify what we're talking about and
00:07how that affects people. So can you talk about a weather variable that may
00:11not be so familiar to the public in terms of heating degree days? Well,
00:15people have noticed that their furnaces have been running on extra overdrive
00:19here to keep up with heating homes and businesses here over the recent weeks,
00:24and that is going to result in increased costs for people and businesses in
00:29terms of that heating costs. And one of the ways that we can quantify that is
00:32by looking at what meteorologists refer to as heating degree days, which is a
00:36measure of the demand of energy that's needed to heat homes and buildings.
00:41We're going to show you how to compute that. But the heating degree days can
00:45be summed up over any period of time. It can be looked at for a specific cold
00:49wave a month or over the entire season to describe how much heating demand is
00:54needed. And there we have the big equation. We got a big font. I think
00:58I know when I see fine print, I begin to think things are complicated. I know
01:02there's a little bit of math. We don't like to show too much math on the air. But
01:05really, this is not that difficult of a calculation. We're looking at how the
01:09day's temperature compares to 65 degrees. So can you walk us through this here,
01:14John?
01:15And 65 is a base that can be used in terms of describing when heating would be
01:19needed in some homes with more insulation that you could look at a 70 degree base
01:24or 68 degree base, things of that nature. But basically, you take the day's high
01:28temperature and the day's low temperature. You add them together and divide by two. This
01:34is what meteorologists refer to as one of the ways to describe the average
01:39temperature of the day. So once you have that, you then take 65 minus that
01:43number. And that comes out with the heating degree days for that day. All right. So
01:47there you go. So if your high temperature is 35, your low is 15. That gives you a mean
01:53temperature, an average temperature for the day of 25 degrees. That's 40 degrees off from 65. So
01:58you're going to need to use a lot of heat to heat your home with that. And, you know, we can,
02:02as you said, add these together for multiple days, multiple weeks for a whole season
02:06to give us a big number. How are we doing this year? And how are we doing
02:09specifically over the past three weeks? Well, let's look specifically at the time period that
02:14the most intense cold wave here between January 15th and February 8th. And then take a look at a
02:19variety of cities here from the northeast to the south. And these are the sum of the heating degree
02:26days during that time period. And then we compare it to the historic average, the long-term historic
02:30average. And you can see that the heating degree days during this cold wave have been anywhere from
02:35about 115 percent to 150 percent of the historic average. So that means that the heating demand on
02:42average will be 125 percent more than the historic average during that time period in Philadelphia,
02:50for example. And the way you can compute this is if you take your energy bill from last year,
02:55for example, the amount of money that you spent on heating your home or business. And let's take a look
03:00at New York City, for example. Say you spent $300 during that time period last year. Well, you'd be spending
03:06another $51 in addition to that this year based upon this cold wave. So when you look at the numbers,
03:13some families are based on their location and the specifics of how they heat their home.
03:18Some people are going to be spending $100 or more extra this year during this cold wave in order to be
03:25able to heat their homes. And that's another impact to people's bottom lines. And certainly that's been in
03:32in the news here as we've been talking about the affordability of many things across the country.
03:38And then if we were to compare the entire heating season so far, going back to September to now,
03:43compared to maybe last year for the same time period, how are we doing? Well, it's a mixed bag in
03:49some areas. You can see that over the cold season last year in some places, like for example,
03:56Chicago. There were actually a higher degree of heating degree days during last year during that
04:02time period. But when you compare it to the long-term historic average, you notice that you're near or
04:07just below in many spots. And that's because other parts of the cold season have been not as cold.
04:13So the intense cold wave has made up for some of those times where the heating demand
04:18wasn't as needed. So in many spots like New York City and Philadelphia, you're running about the
04:23historic average for heating degree days in terms of the cold season so far when all things are
04:29considered, even though it's been a really intense period of cold in these locations over recent weeks.
04:34And we're not done yet. We have another month plus, a couple months to go until the whole heating
04:39season is over. But we're beginning, beginning after this cold weekend to see our way out of the
04:44coldest of the cold, at least climatologically. AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist John Porter. Thanks again, John.
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