In a My View by Ivan Orisek, “Stick to the Facts” the writer didn’t follow his own dictum in his claims that the historic record shows no increases in temperature or rainfall for Sullivan County since 1895. 

I checked the cited websites and found that the record of average annual temperature for Sullivan County showed three periods, typical of all such records: one of slow rise from 1895 to 1955, a midcentury cooling period from 1955-1965, and a more rapid rise from 1965 to the present, with a total increase of 4° F (2.3° C). 

These trends are mimicked in nearby counties, for New York State as a whole, and for the entire U.S.

So the climate of Sullivan County is not peculiar: it shows trends very similar to the graphs of national or global temperature increases that we are used to seeing in the media. 

The precipitation records show the same three periods but with less pronounced changes.

Christopher Scholz
Professor emeritus, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
Yulan, NY