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.
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.
1971-2000 average here
Looks more like average and defiantly cooler than the graph in the article.
Sorry, meant to write cooler than the graph posted by Basil (12:24:05)
My heads up by backside today!
Like somebody else already mentioned, they are mostly (if not all) measuring temperatures within towns, cities etc
If you drive a motorcycle in winter you know that when you enter even a small town you feel like in home, WAY much warmer than outside the town.
UHI
Surely this will go in step changes. Add tarmac round the base – increase temperature but next year the offset will be the same. It will not be a year on year increase?
Mike
Warmer than 2008? Not according to my diary. On this day 11th March 2008 in Nanaimo we experienced daily highs of 10.5 degrees celsius with overnight lows of 5.5 degrees celsius. Current high 4 degrees celsius and down to minus 5 celsius overnight. The 2007 figures for the same date was a high of 12 Celsius, and overnight low of 9.2 Celsius. 2006 was rather like today, 2005 a balmy 15.5 Celsius and 2004 just crawling into double figures.
But of course that’s just ‘Weather’ isn’t it?
Data source: http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/hourlydata_e.html
Paul S (13:51:52) :
Sorry, meant to write cooler than the graph posted by Basil (12:24:05)
My heads up by backside today!
Except that I posted exactly the same one you posted (i.e. using the 1971-2000 climatology) in my earlier ” Basil (11:24:38) :” post.
The reason I used 1895-2000 in my “(12:24:05)” was to show what this winter looked like “based on records dating back to 1895” since that seemed to be the context of your reply.
It is natural that the recent winter would look cooler compared to 1971-2000 than to 1895-2000 (given the overall upward trend through the 20th century).
I’m not sure what this has to do with anything. When I said “not necessarily” I was thinking of how even going all the way back to 1895, some regions show cooling, and some show warming when comparing this winter to the 1895-2000 average. That some of the area still shows cooling using that data is remarkable, and may be the point you were making. But some also show warming.
There’s no argument here. Just some confusion on how to describe what the data shows.
I just find it hard to believe anything they say. The government, including NOAA is corrupted.
NOAA has used Hansen’s time machine that lowers historical data to account for UHI effects and that of course makes current data warmer than normal.
For the posts on sea ice…. the sea ice tends to be quite volatile over short time frames. Wind and currnet can pack it up or spread it out making it appear to melt or freeze rapidly over a week or so. The sudden drop is probibly nothing. You can only really get a feel for the seasons trend over a month or two.
Maybe NOAA changed their correction factors to correct for the normal cooling of the planet so they can still claim global warming is still alive and well.
I live in the Fraser Valley and yes it has been cold this winter. Even during that “warmer” week in February it was colder than the average. Here are the numbers for average February temperature for the past 3 years from a local underground station not too far from here:
2007 5.4 C
2008 5.3 C
2009 4.1 C
I know that this is local, but the problem is that we see people saying htat it has been colder than usual, yet NOAA says differently. There is a serious concern on the validity of their claims.
It’s going to turn out that NOAA was using September’s temperatures for Siberia.
Basil (14:28:20) :
I think you may be right. I’ll have re-read over it in the morning.
I think that last line “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.” should actually include the following disclaimer:
“We don’t really understand the surface of the sun and our predictions for Solar Cycle 24 have turned out to be wrong but we keep trying.”
What arrogance!
Surely this all shows that climate proxies are not a good indicator of climate.
The NOAA temperature record is opposite with the Great Lakes freezing over proxy, the Antartica is warming temperature record reconstruction, is at odds with the Antartic increasing amount of sea ice proxy.
Professor Mann and the IPCC believe in proxies, I have doubts.
It could also be the temperature records and reconstructions are not very good.
Also possible that nothing is really changing other than the way we choose to look at it.
I know this is barely tangential, but. . .
Wassup with NSIDC arctic ice extent the last few days? It’s not quite so sudden as the last satellite sensor era drop as to confidently say “that can’t be right”, but it is still pretty striking a drop. Natural variation or not?
This is ridiculous. I looked at my gas and electric bills and all winter both said the average temperature was almost 10 degrees below normal from November to end of January. I am in pittsburgh. We did not get very much snow but it has been cold.
“The December 2008 – February 2009 average temperature was 33.49 degrees F, which is 0.53 degree F above normal.”
And,
“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.”
I guess that makes sense: the winter has been warmer, but all the newly-unemployed have been at home, using the lights, the TV, etc.
Sorry – not much time, but I have to ask: when they talk about % above normal, what are they referring to?
Logically, it would be Kelvin. If not, % are completely and utterly meaningless and misleading
Something just doesn’t seem right. If you look at the arctic ice minimum for the last 3 years, there is a step function drop – a 25% drop in minimum ice extent from 2007 to 2008. No other year, from 1978 on, shows such a drop. This is all the more suspicious as the maximum extent has increased each year from 2007. Before the alarmists jump all over me, I admit that I have nothing else but a suspicion and a ‘gut feeling’ that something is wrong here. Could it be that the 2007 mimimum was less than the chart shows? Could it be that something has changed in the instrumentation? (overstating the minimum in 2008 and/or 2009) Further confusing is the fact that there appears to be a 11 million sq km increase from min to max, equal to or greater than any time in the data presented? Or, it may be that there is nothing wrong at all and that this is just the way it is.
With all that flooding that occured in Oregon/Washington December through January, then the massive snowfalls, then more rain, they should have enough water for 2 years. Where is this data coming from? Our relatives in Washington state were nearly floating, for crying out loud. Roads closed due to standing water, rivers overflowing, mudslides, 5 foot snowpacks in the Spokane area.
No wonder the Governor of California declared a drought and state of emergency: Someone is playing silly games and has suceeded in scaring folks half to death. It’s the February hit the Panic button report of last year.
They dumped half of the reservoirs in California, and sat behind thier desks refusing to stop when told the rainy season didn’t extend past February. They had double snowpack levels and ended up looking like fools.
This is in line with that big Arctic Melt that turned out to be a degraded->failed satellite sensor.
Richard: I am quite sure that the reported data can be intercepted and changed by someone with an agenda to run a drought scare. If they don’t have reservoirs to dump out to sea, they can fix the numbers to pump the AGW scare.
Storms headed for Pacific Northwest again this weekend. Those folks have to be very soggy at this point what with the constant parade since November.
Texas has been very dry, but we make up for a few months in the next few days. Been raining pretty hard for going on 24 hours now.
IIRC, there appears to be a broad spectrum of opinion about how significant the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is, when it comes to making adjustments to collected data.
I’m faintly aware that some studies have shown an empirical (logarithmic?) relationship between ‘close-by’ population sizes and its effect on increasing measured temperatures and I’m also aware that many informal, similar studies have reinforced the hypothesis that human induced warming does bias the observed temperatures towards the, much beloved by ‘scientific agencies’ , ‘positive anomalies’ – that show that the debate (When did that happen?) is over!
In laymans language, i.e. mine, It’s warmer living close by other folks than it is out and isolated in the country!
I have two questions to ask but doubt that they are remotely answerable in their entirety.
(Q1) Ignoring scenarios such as proximate energy usage, prevailing winds and other micro-climate factors, what is the most likely, average UHI adjustment that should be used to ‘determine’ the temperature at any particular site? Some say 0.xx, others say xx.xx! (I’ve heard figures bandied about betwixt 0.08C and 8C-but, as I’m hard of hearing, I’ll be delighted to be corrected!)
Secondly: Given that the ‘temperature’ recorded, in any time period, by many/some/all sites is a simple average of a minimum and a maximum (I’m happy to be proven wrong on this- as I’m making a supposition) says nothing about what the observer on the ground experiences. Example – The sun shines all day- we hit 15C – (I’m in scotland – forgive me my low expectations) – most of the night hovers around 10C (Yup I’m an optimist) until we drop to 4C for the half-hour I’m on snooze-control and wondering whether I should suddenly develop man-flu and phone in sick!
Result- average temperature that day = (15+4)/2=9.5C.
The next day, it was rainy and overcast apart (Min 12C) from half an hour of an, almost tropical, species-threatening extinction event (22C). Result 17C ((12+22)/2).
So, we have a positive anomaly of +7.5C (17C to 9.5C) on day two but Day one was so much warmer!
With that background- If a local temperature number is meaningless- then (Q2) how can a ‘Global Average temperature’ be taken seriously?
I’d love to ask Q3- but as I’d only put in a bid for two questions – I guess I’ve disqualified myself!
This is what we feel…. see link below…. and gas company’s data goes back how far?
We had a NORMAL WINTER!!!!! here in Michigan.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=5&mon1=1&mon2=1&iy%5B1%5D=&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
Things – (winter weather) will get worse much worse!!!!!!
We had it good for 10~20 years. it is cooling, prepare for what is ahead because your government is 10 years behind reality!!!! you have been warned!
God be with us all
Tim
Employees of the Canadian Government Meteorological Service, like those in the US, normally strictly toe the party line on AGW. So it was interesting to see the following article appear in BC newspapers on 10 March. It explicitly mentions the negative phase of the PDO and the possibility of colder weather for several decades to come. Remember this was written by an unnamed journalist, not by the meteorologist.
“Extreme B.C. winters could become norm: climatologists say”
Vancouver – March snowfalls and extreme winter weather are expected to become the rule rather than the exception for B.C. in coming decades, climatologists say.
This winter’s uncharacteristic snowstorms, including five centimetres dumped on the Lower Mainland Monday and the December blizzards that stranded thousands of travellers, is evidence the region is entering a long period of lower temperatures.
The natural climate shift, known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, refers to the way winter temperatures in the Pacific Northwest appear to drop every 20 to 30 years.
“In the fifties and sixties, even into the early seventies, we had horrible, incredible snowfall events,” said David Jones, a meteorologist with Environment Canada. “We’ve been in a warm phase for a long time. The winters seemed to be getting milder.”
Those mild winters may be over for now.
Monday’s snowfall marked the third March snowfall since 1998, the year extreme snow in B.C. led researchers to believe a warm phase was ending.
In the 30 years prior to 1998, there were only two blizzards in March.
Sixty years ago, during the last cold period, there were 15 snowstorms in March.
Before that, “we had some really nasty winters around the turn of the (20th) century,” during the first recorded cold phase, Jones said.
Some climatologists debate the existence of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Weather records in B.C. only began to be collected in the late 19th century.
Canadian Press