by Planet B

The 1930s was a very hot decade in North America and contributed hugely to the ‘Dust Bowl’ which saw American and Canadian prairies dry out, and the dust whipped up by winds was an environmental disaster

Prior to satellites we were reliant on land based measurements. Ocean data was not worth the paper it was written on until the past 30 years, so the most accurate data we have is the U.S. land data.

No, we are not warmer than the 1930s if we look at Virginia, Texas, Arkansas, Wyoming, or the American Midwest.

Reviews currently underway for Montana and Colorado indicate the same.

And before the dust bowl brigade come to the rescue of the alarmism, the late 1930s were an absolute furnace for Australia as well. January 1939 is legendary in Australian history for its brutal, terrifying heatwaves, culminating in the infamous “Black Friday” bushfires in Victoria. During that exact stretch, places like Wilcannia, New South Wales, hit an astonishing 50.1°C (122.2°F)

China experienced devastating, historic weather extremes in the 1930s but had no data other than historical records of the extreme weather. In 1934, China suffered a catastrophic summer heatwave and drought that dried up parts of the Yangtze River, followed by massive crop failures. But tracking it scientifically is a major challenge. During the 1930s, China was fractured by civil war and the Japanese invasion, meaning many regional weather stations were abandoned, destroyed, or never built in the first place.

When Chinese meteorologists and international researchers reconstruct China’s long-term climate history, they do see a distinct regional spike in the mid-20th century. In China, this is often called the “Warm Period of the 1930s–1940s.”

The 1930s pattern tracks perfectly into Europe as well. Europe had some incredibly intense, headline-grabbing summer heatwaves during that decade—most notably in July 1934. During that summer, a massive high-pressure system blocked rainfall and brought blistering heat across Central Europe. Countries like Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia), and parts of the UK saw temperatures soar to heights that wouldn’t be breached again for decades. For example, Frankfurt, Germany hit 38.0°C (100.4°F) in July 1934, an extraordinary number for northern-central Europe at the time.

We have essentially no instrument data for Antartica prior to the late 1950s (the International Geophysical Year). Also none for Africa, with the exception of South Africa, which does indeed hold the most robust, long-running weather station records on the continent, with many stations running continuously since the late 1800s.

When we look at the historical data for South Africa, the 1930s pattern shows up yet again. 

How inconvenient

Between roughly 1920 and 1940, parts of the European Arctic and Greenland underwent a massive, sudden spike in temperature. In the 1930s, winter temperatures in places like Svalbard soared several degrees above normal.

Because climate patterns don’t care about borders, Canada suffered the exact same fate as the U.S. Great Plains. The Canadian Prairies (Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba) were devastated by the exact same combination of severe drought and high-pressure heat domes.

Even New Zealand’s NIWA, one of the dodgiest climate organisations, admits the 1934/1935 extended summer is legendary in Kiwi climate history. A powerful combination of La Niña and a highly negative Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) locked in a massive coupled ocean-and-land heatwave.

If you look at the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) records from that era, the actual instrumented coverage of the planet’s surface was only about 20% to 25%. The vast majority of the Earth was a scientific “blind spot.” However where we do have data, we have the 1930’s being very warm, and where we don’t have data we have recorded extreme weather events

It is safe to assume the 1930’s were at least as warm as it is today if not even warmer.