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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At the other end of the globe, Australia February’s average temp was slightly above normal. However, “the month was marked by two extreme events which were only partially reflected in the monthly totals and averages: the heat which affected the south-east in the first week of February, and the severe flooding which affected parts of Queensland during the month.”
In some parts of the SE temperatures were the highest on record and the bush-fires in the State of Victoria have the most of the MSM and ruling politicians proclaiming the fires were as a result of climate change:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml
However, I can announce that the Great Barrier Reef is still alive and kicking and somewhat cold soaked by the heavy rains.
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.
What we have here is heightened urban heat island effects contaminating the readings.
Because this winter has been so long and so cold, humans have had to use more heating to warm their homes and drive more to get around the snow blocked roads. Somehow somewhere this is sending the readings up regardless of how bad the winter was.
This is what we would look forward to if greenhouse gases were forcibly reduced. Without GHGs acting as a buffer to trap heat and protecting us from the cold winters will be longer, energy use higher, but the temperature readings won’t show drops because of increased urban heat island effect. In fact, temperature readings could very well still show an increase.
Basically, we have to completely reevaluate the way we collect temperature data. No urban stations at all, nothing near buildings (even in Antarctica!), only rural, only at altitudes above 1000 feet.
And we need a reconstruction of all historic data with the above in mind to get a good picture of climate change.
When we do this then the whole skeptics vs alarmists thing will end, the fears will be reduced, the politicization will vaporize and integrity can be restored to science.
So PDO negative, major solar minimum-when do the winter temps fall to those we saw back 30 years ago in the last neg PDO? Aren’t we getting on into this PDO shift?
The use of the period from 1895 is a real giveaway. I haven’t seen that period used as a comparator for decades.
If we have only recently (since 1998) started coming down from a natural peak of warmth it would take some time to get back to the levels of 1970 let alone 1895.
In fact for the weather to have been average for the period since 1895 it must have been well below average for the period 1970 to 2000.
I live near Houston, and log hourly temperatures (have for years – why else would be regularly read this website LOL).
From my data, I agree with my part of this. Houston was slightly warmer in January and much warmer than in February than typical. Both much in drought conditions.
Cannot speak to the rest of the country, but this is correct for here.
Off Topic, but this may be of interest to WUWT readers:
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V11/N20/C1.php
“Temperatures for winter, December 2008 – February 2009, across the contiguous United States were near average, based on records dating back to 1895”
Wait, let me get this correct, the temperatures are near average using the basis from the end of the LIA (+40 years) to present? That means it was cold!
Glenn (11:17:24) :
These people are also reporting ice loss in the Arctic.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
I live in Indiana and my last natural gas bill said that February was 20% colder than last year. I guess they were measuring it in terms of heating energy required to keep the house warm.
Stephen Wilde (11:37:57) :
The use of the period from 1895 is a real giveaway. I haven’t seen that period used as a comparator for decades.
It is a giveaway perhaps, but not the way you imagine. There is a standard US dataset of temperature, precip, drought index, HDDs and CDDs that goes back to 1895.
See here:
http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/CDODivisionalSelect.jsp
That’s probably the basis for this. Not what you think (though I’m not sure I know what you think).
“Temperatures for winter, December 2008 – February 2009, across the contiguous United States were near average…”
Yeah, in the way of the old joke about a statistician being someone who can stand with one foot in a bucket of boiling water, and the other foot in a bucket of ice water, and say that “on the average” he feels fine.
The quoted statement is correct only in a very broad, and meaningless, way. Some parts were near normal, some were colder than normal, and some were warmer than normal. The latter two roughly cancel out, leaving the average across the CONUS near average on the whole. But lots of areas had a clearly colder than normal winter (and some had warmer than normal), as the data clearly shows.
Re: Canada’s winter 08-09;
Heating degree days were greater than winter 07-08, indicating much colder. Data for February not included yet.
see link below, from Canadian Gas Association :
http://www.cga.ca/publications/documents/Chart10-HeatingDegreeDays_000.pdf
Paul S (11:52:53) :
“Temperatures for winter, December 2008 – February 2009, across the contiguous United States were near average, based on records dating back to 1895″
Wait, let me get this correct, the temperatures are near average using the basis from the end of the LIA (+40 years) to present? That means it was cold!
Not necessarily. It does mean, though, that the cold years from the early part of the 20th century should factor in somehow.
Maybe like this:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=4&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
I don’t understand the NOAA findings, as this just does not seem to jive with observation. I’ve have been paying attention to weather the past few years a lot more closely than usual. Here in Tennessee, we seemingly have been significantly cooler than normal. I have been comparing our daily temperatures against our typical averages all winter and they have consistently been 5-15F cooler than averages for the respective months.
Also, coming originally from North Dakota, I have been tracking their temperatures this winter as well. They have been as cold if not colder than the 1996-97 winter which consistently set new all time records all winter long. North Dakota has been comparable this year to 96-97, and they just finished a 24hr. blizzard this morning that also tickled the record books.
I just don’t get NOAA’s report here … it just doesn’t seem to fit reality!
I’m suspicious…
Basil (12:24:05) :
Not necessarily.
I would suggest yes necessarily, just on the basis that they [NOAA] have to use a 105 years average to show above average temperatures for 2008/9 winter. Most climate centres use the previous 30 years average. I suspect it might show much colder temps to average using this accepted benchmark.
Do not confuse how the temperature is changing year to year with where the temperature happens to be with respect to the average temperature over the last 103 years. I notice that they didn’t break out the January temperature compared to the average. Did that particular month happen to be colder than the average? It could well be that temperatures this winter were above the average between now and 1895, but still were closer to that average than last year’s and the year before that, etc. In other words, the climate may be cooling but still hasn’t cooled enough to reach the Dec.- Feb. average since 1895.
I track temps in SE Michigan where it was near normal… 1 degree below normal for Feb. The overall state rank was 20th coldest while the heat index energy usage was 85th… indicating a warmer than normal month. I’m only guessing here, but 11.6% unemployment, higher foreclosure rates, and people abandoning the area might be a better causal explanation that “warmer than normal.”
Usind daily temperature data from the weather channel I calculate that our area, Utica Michigan, was;
6 degrees F colder than average in January
0.9 degrees warmer than average in February.
Actually, just curious, the map that Basil kindly posted above, does anyone know if it is possible to change the inputs online in some way, a bit like a woodfortrees type thing? I can’t find anything obvious to allow it.
Thanks all!
Sorry that should have read “Using daily …”
Something about this data struck me. I’ve been keeping track of temps in Connecticut for about 10 years. Looking at NOAA’a own data:
http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=box
and pulling up the Hartford numbers, specifically NOAA’a own assesment of temperature departure, I get the following averages:
December 1.5
January -10.5
February 6.0
So, December looks “near normal”, January was definitely below normal (my heating bills confirm this), and February was above normal. But, February was not as far above normal as January was below, so how can NOAA claim Connecticut was “near normal”? I would put it a bit below. I guess it boils down to what the plus/minus variation NOAA uses for vague terms like “near”, “far”, etc.
Why not just show the actual numeric variation??
Anthony,
What alternate universe was this report for? I can’t speak for the rest of the world but it has been very cold in Northern New Jersey. All we have been talking about is how cold it is and when would spring be arriving. It has been so bad that I have serious concerns for some of the plants in my garden. To be truthful I have be taking advantage of the New York City Heat Island to keep plans which would not normally survive.
Mike
Paul,
Go here for the interactive page:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/usclimdivs/
Squidly (12:30:40) :
Tennessee’s winter was near “normal” with normal being the average for 1971-2000. Since the early 2000’s were warmer than the 1971-2000 normal, a return to that normal seems like a return to colder weather.
Basil (13:02:20) :
Paul,
Go here for the interactive page:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/usclimdivs/
Much appreciated.