But, in 1934 reporting the weather statistics was not political. Today it is, and the question isn't one of technology but rather of politics. How soon before we find Winston Smith, Squealer and Snowball redoing the data from those hot dustbowl years?
There are sunsopot observations made at Greenwich, England, dating back to the early to middle 1600’s that have become extremely important in determining sunspot activity as an indicator of our sun’s energy output. An absence of sunspots for decades coincided with a very long duration of cold weather. It has become known as the Little Ice Age. So, just because scientists may not have had the most sophisticated of equipment back then in the 17th century, it doen’e equate that they couldn’t observe and make correlations. Ergo for 1934.