A method and system of compensating for localized phenomena in a display is disclosed. The display array includes a plurality of normal pixels, a plurality of reference pixels distributed across the display array, and a controller for adjusting content data signals for the plurality of normal pixels to compensate for aging of the pixels in the array. The controller determines the effect of a localized phenomena on each of the normal pixels based on a difference between a parameter of the effected normal pixels and the parameter of the effected reference pixel in proximity thereto. An adjusted aging compensation value based on a function of the difference in the parameters associated with the localized phenomena is calculated by the controller. The adjusted aging compensation values are applied to data content signals of the effected normal pixels, and the original aging compensation values are applied to the normal pixels not effected by the localized phenomena.