Temperature trends through urbanization in Metropolitan Washington, D.C., 1945–1979

Summary Annual and seasonal changes of the urban heat island magnitude in Washington, D.C. and a close-in suburb were analyzed for the period of 1945 through 1979. Monthly and annual mean temperature data, corrected for elevation, from three stations (National Airport, D.C.—downtown, Silver Spring, MD—suburban, and Beltsville, MD—rural) were evaluated by testing the statistical significance of temperature differences between the different data sets.