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

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.

arXiv comment14 pages, 3 figures. Invited paper for American Journal of Physics

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