Dina Spector breathlessly reports that “December Heat Wave Smashes Temperature Records In New York City” on Business Insider. Her hysteria relies on a Huffington Post piece which relies on an AP story.

And they’re all wrong.

I checked with NOAA on record temperature maximums in the US on December 21, 2013. There were none.

NOAA Record Highs for 12/21/2013

The “record” high temperature that Dina, HuffPo, and AP reported was from an unofficial thermometer in Central Park.

I know this is a silly thing to get worked up about, but it demonstrates how the press creates climate hysteria by lies, deceit, and lousy journalism. Question what you read.

More interesting to me is the table of records out to 365 days. In the past year, there have been more record lows than record highs:

NOAA temperature records for 365 days ending 12/21/2013

When we look for data to confirm our prejudices, we find it all over the place. I fall victim to this bias all the time. Smart people look for disconfirming data–it’s called “critical thinking.”

For 2014, be a critical thinker.