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``Weather'' Records: Musings on Cold Days after a Long Hot Indian Summer

B. Schmittmann·R. K. P. Zia
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Abstract

We present a simple, pedagogical introduction to the statistics of extreme values. Motivated by a string of record high temperatures in December 1998, we consider the distribution, averages and lifetimes for a simplified model of such ``records.'' Our ``data'' are sequences of independent random numbers all of which are generated from the same probability distribution. A remarkable universality emerges: a number of results, including the lifetime histogram, are universal, that is, independent of the underlying distribution.

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B. Schmittmann, R. K. P. Zia. 1999-05-07. ``Weather'' Records: Musings on Cold Days after a Long Hot Indian Summer. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.19114

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