Press Release
March 10, 2009
Temperatures for winter, December 2008 – February 2009, across the contiguous United States were near average, based on records dating back to 1895, according to a preliminary analysis by scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. For February 2009 alone, the average temperature was above the long-term average.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
Winter Temperature Highlights
- The December 2008 – February 2009 average temperature was 33.49 degrees F, which is 0.53 degree F above normal.
- On a regional basis, temperatures were warmer than average across the southern tier states and central Rockies, while the upper Midwest, Great Lakes, Maine, and Washington had a cooler-than-average winter.
- Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 0.4 percent above average during winter.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
February Temperature Highlights
- The average February temperature of 36.9 degrees F was 2.3 degrees F above the 20th century average.
- February temperatures were above average across much of the country. Only parts of the Southeast, Northwest, and West experienced near-normal temperatures.
- Oklahoma and Texas had their ninth and 10th, respectively, warmest February. Florida was the only state to experience a cooler-than-average temperature for the month.
- The contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 4.1 percent below average in February.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
Winter Precipitation Highlights
- The United States experienced its fifth driest December-February period on record. Texas had its driest winter ever and the Southeast experienced its 10th driest winter. Only the East-North-Central region (Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) had precipitation averages that were above normal.
- Twelve states (in the southern Plains, Southeast, and Northeast) had their 10th driest, or drier, January-February period in the 1895-2009 record.
February Precipitation Highlights
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
- Precipitation across the contiguous United States in February averaged 1.40 inches, which is 0.62 inch below the 1901-2000 average and tied with February 1954 as the eighth driest February on record.
- Much of the country received below-average precipitation, resulting in the eighth driest February for the contiguous U.S. It was especially dry in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, where New Jersey and Delaware had their driest February on record.
- At the end of February, 24 percent of the contiguous United States was in moderate-to-exceptional drought, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor. Severe-to-extreme drought conditions continued in the western Carolinas, northeast Georgia, the southern Plains, and parts of California and Hawai’i, with exceptional drought in southern Texas.
- About 20 percent of the contiguous United States had moderately-to-extremely wet conditions at the end of February, according to the Palmer Index (a well-known index that measures both drought intensity and wet spell intensity). This is about three percent less than at the end of January.
Other Highlights
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
- January-February 2009 was the driest, first two month-period in the 1895-2009 record for the contiguous United States. Precipitation across the nation averaged 2.69 inches for January-February.
- NOAA satellite observations of snow cover extent showed 6.7 million square miles of North America were covered by snow in February 2009, which is 0.1 million square miles above the 1966-2009 average of 6.6 million square miles.
NCDC’s preliminary reports, which assess the current state of the climate, are released soon after the end of each month. These analyses are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision. Additional quality control is applied to the data when late reports are received several weeks after the end of the month and as increased scientific methods improve NCDC’s processing algorithms.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
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Don’t you just love that last sentence “NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources”? So they understand and predict sunspots! And they understand and predict ocean currents! No problems there then; easy-peasy.
NOAA. We feel your heat.
To what extent could these temperature outcomes be biased by the badly placed thermometers in the States?
Does anyone know how the winter season was for Canada?
On a regional basis, temperatures were warmer than average across the southern tier states and central Rockies, while the upper Midwest, Great Lakes, Maine, had a cooler-than-average winter, Washington was damn colder than average.
Fixed it for them
Has NOAA been reporting temperature averages for the US based on data dating back to 1895 all along? They may have, I’m just a climate science newbie.
I for one am really struggling with these January and February numbers. Look at this winters news reports: over 50% of contiguous US covered in snow, Great Lakes freezing over, record cold in Maine and the midwest, down to a record 51F in Hawaii, and a long and wicked cold spell in Canada, especially the west. Short of furnace exhaust heat blasting onto a majority of weather stations, maybe the 2009 charts require re-evaluation.
Dick,
Can’t speak for Canada, however, I operate a climate station for environment canada(south of Calgary AB.) and have 19 years of data, and our winter Dec-Feb was below normal for that period. I don’t have the exact numbers with me.
The implication of NOAA’s report is clear. Water now freezes at a much higher temperature than ever before.
I do agree that locally (nort of Seattle) a big part of February was quite mild. However, my roses don’t agree it was mild. They are barely putting out leaf buds. In some years in the past they would be blooming in early March.
So, there is some problem with all this. If we only measure high and low, it still doesn’t count heat contents for the day. After all plants grow based on total heat/light content, not min. and max.
This is a cold winter, so far. The average is perhaps correct, but the reality doesn’t match it.
If any of you American and Canadian fellows feel like you’re gonna miss snowfalls in the near future, the good news is there’s some snow already to be seen in New Zealand:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2253646/Winter-falls-early-as-temperatures-drop
We’ve lived in greater Atlanta for more than a decade. This is one of the coldest winters that we have experienced – probably as cold as last year’s. Certainly, 2005 – 2006 was noticeably warmer.
It seemed like every day that we got up and looked at the weather channel, it was just about as cold in Atlanta as in NY Metro. Usually low-high twenties. Interestingly, November was unusually cold and the cool weather hit early November, rather than in mid-late November, as it ususally does.
A few simple concepts is all is needed to understand the misconceptions surrounding climate change.
Although it is true that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing, the global temperature of the planet is dropping. If this the case, why are glaciers shrinking? Why is the snow mass of the Sierra Nevada mountains dropping?
You may have wondered why your ice cubes in your refrigerator shrink as time goes by. The reason is that colder temperatures cause a drop in humidity (the opposite is also true, that is why the Florida swamps are warm and humid).
As the humidity drops due to global cooling, there is less snow precipitation and glaciers gradually shrink.
It is remarkable that this simple and obvious fact has been so thoroughly misunderstood or ignored by so many people. The real danger is not global warming due to CO2, but CO2-induced global cooling and it drying-up effect.
Dick H. Ahles @ur momisugly 10:04:17
It was cold in Canada this winter, as it usually is 🙂
In some places, colder than normal, others normal. A white Christmas all ov er, which is rare as the coats of British California usually stays wet and warm, as does Vancouver Island.
“Does anyone know how the winter season was for Canada?”
Cold…very. Even here on Vancouver Island we are well below normal. Saskatchewan has been -30C with only a few breaks since before Christmas.
Overall, this has been a Canadian winter which, among other things, means it is not over yet. We still have wisps of snow on the ground here in Victoria and that is very, very, odd.
OT- Mauna Loa CO2 is out…
“An Arctic high pressure system has meant icy temperatures and broken records across Western Canada.”
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=prairiecold_11_03_2009&warningtype=aw
…-
March 11, 2009
Y2Kyoto: If You Don’t Believe In Global Warming
Just look out your window!
The cold is making history today.This is the coldest March 11th in the 125-year history of weather record keeping.And according to [senior climatologist] Dave Phillips with Environment Canada it’s been the coldest winter in 30 years, so far. “That is factoring the temperatures from December, January, February, not even working in March.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/010942.html#comments
“Has NOAA been reporting temperature averages for the US based on data dating back to 1895 all along?”
x2. I suppose comparisons with usual 1950-2000 averages didn´t yield satisfactory message, so they had to go back into the little ice age.
I hope that the same remarks are made about the “normal temperatures” as when some people thinks it was necessary to do when I talked about normal global temperatures are (far) above “average” for february 2009.
Look at the forecast NOAA issued back in October 2008 for the coming winter and compare it with what happened:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AMnne6QOtig/SP5yz7_-olI/AAAAAAAABgw/_RK4DmQ4lFc/s1600-h/cpc_1.5_DJF_2008.png
Oops!
I agree with Ken Luknowsky on this matter .After seeing so many temperature sensors being in bias locations next to air condition exhaust or beside asphault or cement parking lots just to name a few how can anyony give NOAA any credit for their findings.I can say without any dout that the global warming crowd will have this info front and center.Final answer.One final tidbit is in the NOAA report they sat the we used 0.4 more energy.How did that happen if it was wermer than normal .That alone should send a red flag that something is up.I know i’ve used more kilowatts this year than last and I’ve not made any changes at home.
Anyone notice that nsidc is reporting another almost half-million loss over the last several days?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
They show Missouri as “normal”. We’ll I’ve only lived here for 15 years, but this has been the coldest one yet…
Dick: The winter season for Canada? Cold. Damn cold.
It was -35 deg C this morning, and has been for nearly a week.
Winter started here, in early December, with exceptional cold, and seems to be finishing off that way, too.
Doug (10:09:02) :
“Has NOAA been reporting temperature averages for the US based on data dating back to 1895 all along? They may have, I’m just a climate science newbie.”
Bit of humor, from Wiki:
“Keeling camped at Big Sur where he used his new device to measure the level of carbon dioxide and found that it had risen since the 19th century.”
Must have been a long camping trip.
That first graphic should be compared with this one:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/images/outlooktemp.jpg
None of the “blue” in the first graphic were predicted by NOAA, and the spatial distribution of the warmer than usual areas were missed, also.
BTW, here’s a slightly more finely grained version of the first image, which shows the recent winter by climate division, rather than by state:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=3&mon1=12&mon2=2&iy%5B1%5D=2008&iy%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&irange1=&irange2=&xlow=&xhi=&xint=&scale=&iwhite=1&Submit=Create+Plot
It shows better how the cooler than normal weather spread down the west coast, and into the northeast, and wasn’t limited to just the blue states in the original graphic.