2007 a year of weather records in U.S. - Really?

Yahoo/AP reports 2007 was a year of weather records in the U.S. These stories always fascinate me. The primer,

Individual weather extremes can't be attributed to global warming, scientists always say. However, "it's the run of them and the different locations" that have the mark of man-made climate change, said top European climate expert Phil Jones, director of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia in England.

So individual weather extremes can not be attributed to global warming, but let's run down the list of individual weather extremes to show you that global warming is happening. Some quotes:

England had the warmest April in 348 years of record-keeping there, shattering the record set in 1865 by more than 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

So, what was happening in 1865. For one, the globe was coming out of The Little Ice Age which lastest between 1550-1850 so we would kind of expect to break this record some time or another. Another quote or actually quotes from the same article.

And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere. U.S. weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature records, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. weather data. Smashing records was common, especially in August. At U.S. weather stations, more than 8,000 new heat records were set or tied for specific August dates.

So if US weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature records for the year (2007), how does it follow that 8,000 new heat records were set or tied for specific dates in August? Let's go to comparing apples and oranges.

More remarkably that same month (August), more than 100 all-time temperature records were tied or broken — regardless of the date — either for the highest reading or the warmest low temperature at night. By comparison only 14 all-time low temperatures were set or tied all year long, as of early December, according to records kept by the National Climatic Data Center.

Ok, 100 all-time highs or warmest low temperature at night were broken or tied; however only 14 all-time low temperatures were set or tied. This quote makes one wonder if we took out the warmest low temperature at night, how many all-time highs were actually broken. By the way, this is data as of "early December" so it does not include the data from one of the coldest months of the year. Another quote.

Lakes fed by the Colorado River and which help supply water for more than 20 million Westerners, were only half full.

I find this quote interesting if one understands that lakes fed by the Colorado were made during or after FDR's administration. Hoover/Bouder Dam, which holds back Lake Mead (as an example), was completed in 1935. So we really do not know if there was less water available prior to this time, say during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era. Another quote.

In one March day, Southern California got torrential downpours, hail, snow and fierce winds.

Hail and snow in southern California in March. Oh, yea, that's right global warming is also to blame for cold temperatures too. But, I guess that explains this quote too.

South Africa got its first significant snowfall in 25 years.

Yes, individual temperature extremes cannot be attributed to global warming, much less supposed man-made global warming. But lets pick a location like Portland, TN and show how hot it was there in August to help lead folks to erroneous conclusions. Take a look Portland, OR. No high temperature records were broken in August 2007. Why not use this Portland to show global warming is not happening.