``Weather'' Records: Musings on Cold Days after a Long Hot Indian Summer
arXiv:cond-mat/9905103 · doi:10.1119/1.19114
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.
14 pages, 3 figures. Invited paper for American Journal of Physics