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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NOAA is play games with the charts. The 2008 anomaly is based upon 1895 to 2000 data. The 2009 anomaly is based upon 1971 to 2000. Why not 1934 to 2007 or 1979 to 2007?
Comparative averages based upon variable time frames are garbage. NOAA is our national shame.
Wow Bob S thanks for that telling article.
Thanks to the Canadian Press to help educate people about the PDO.
Also let’s not forget its younger smaller cousin, the AMO (and he is still in his warm phase).
But yes yes and YES….most of the earths energy budget is stored in the oceans…so oceanic forcing playeth a big big BIG part in the weather…way more than the AGW Church would lead the public to believe!
And the same to be said with SOLAR forcing….
Bravo Canadian Press. HEY….just in TIME for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Enjoy it.
Let it snow!
Chris
Norfolk, VA
NOAA also calculates heating days for the EIA. They use 1971-2000 as “normal” for that series. They also show 8% more heating days for ’09 than ’08 for January. It would be even more had the it not been so toasty on the Pacific Coast in January.
Key question about precipitation in the US:
If it falls as snow and hence much of it melts slowly and seeps into the ground, do you need as much precipitation to have healthy levels of ground water and hence growing potential as if it falls as rain?
What are the implications of more snow but less precipitation on the US agricultural prospects?
That’s what it’s all about isn’t it?
Not just simple figures……which vary year on year anyway……
Domingo Tavella (10:51:47) :
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”.
Dominigo,
I dig your posting except for the last remark,
CO2-induced cooling? Are you joking?
Here in North Dakota, the December-February average was three to five degrees below normal, with some cities receiving triple their normal snowfall. It will mean significant spring flooding in Fargo.
March is starting much, much colder. The average so far is an amazing 14 degrees below the norm (1971-2000 avg). Daytime highs this time of year should be in the mid to upper 30s. Bismarck didn’t get about zero Tuesday – a record low maximum of -1°F. This morning Jamestown set a new record low with -21°F.
And the IPCC says global warming will be most noticeable in northern latitudes?
Nothing but cherry-picked data graphs to scare those riding on the fence. Buying time with thier AGW agenda. Just wait until another year goes by and this PDO cold + Grand Minimum gets out of 1st gear.
Notice the spin: average from 1895 to 2000. What happened to the 1950-2000 average? I’ll tell you: it would have show a pretty cold winter, as everyone looking at his heating bill will know.
“Richard (17:33:13) :
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.”
If you have been following stories about the arctic for a few years, you would have read the steady stream of stories in the late 90s about long term thinning being reported from declassified submarine sonar records. These were records from nuclear submarine patrols during the cold war.
This steady thinning meant that the arctic sea ice became more able to break up, be pushed around by wind and able to be flushed out of the Fraam straight. The collapse in ice area in recent years has been due to the decades of change observed by transient submersible visitors. Now that it is so thin it is very vaulnrable to changes in wind and unusual melt conditions.
The problem with that is that water retains a huge amount more heat than the ice would have so the arctic sea warms slightly.
The other side effect is that it takes longer to freeze over the winter releasing that heat back into the atmosphere, lifting the average temperature. This is part of the ‘polar amplification’.
There is very little controvosy over this. The only real challange is whether this is new for the holocene or periods like this occured during eras such as the mediviel warm period.
Worth pointing out that summer insolation at high lattitudes is at the lowest it has been during the holocene so we should be expecting a stadial type event. Whether solar or greenhouse caused, we do seem to be experiancing something of an anolomy in the nothern hemisphere over the past 100 odd years.
Rhys Jaggar (01:21:55) :
The whole mess is a lot more complicated than what makes the news. While things vary with region, here’s what happens in New Hampshire, one of the most forested states in the country:
Winter: Ground frozen unless there’s a lot of snow. In either case, there’s little transport of water into the ground.
March: snow and ground melts, ground gets saturated, water rises in basement sumps (which are supposed to let water out but don’t work when things are this wet)
April: sun reaches forest floor, drying out old leaves. This is the closest thing we have to a fire season. Ground is still saturated.
May: Trees leave out, forest floor cools, get shade, fire risk ends. Tree transpire a huge amount of water into the atmosphere and the ground dries out.
July/August: Often the driest time, though we do get about 3 inches of precip for each month of the year. I look forward to not mowing the lawn.
October: Foliage season, we usually have at least a couple of cool, clear, dry days around the peak of the colors that are so wonderful that we forget about all the awful weather the rest of the year. Come & spend money here! Then go home!
November/mid-December: Blah, dull brown, gray skies, long nights. With dormant trees, ground moisture climbs, ground surface freezes.
mid-December-March:
Cold and snow, except for some warm breaks and rain when storms go west of us.
The best answer to your question is that trees and crops (and sun) dry out the ground surface so we need rain during the summer to keep things growing.
We need the ground water for wells for people and crops, that is helped by gentle, protracted rains and snowmelt.
We need water in lakes and rivers for the same reasons, that is helped by heavy rains like thunderstorms and fast snow melt.
Moderation in all things works out the best, but the extremes are more entertaining.
Ron de Haan (01:38:34) :
Domingo Tavella (10:51:47) :
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”.
Dominigo,
I dig your posting except for the last remark,
CO2-induced cooling? Are you joking?
Not necessarily
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=252066
Twin Cities actuals for winter 2008/09
10/1/08 thru 3/12/09
Normal number of days with an overnight temp < 0 F = 30
2008/09 number of days with an overnight temp < 0 F = 36
That’s plus +25% and does not take into account the UHI effect.
It’s been a long cold winter.
Mr Watts
It would be interesting, once your survey of groundstations is complete, to look only at the temp data from those stations determined to be appropriately sited. Is this part of your intent? I know that the “n” is small in comparison to the total, but still would be interesting.
Ed Zuiderwijk (04:11:53) :
Notice the spin: average from 1895 to 2000. What happened to the 1950-2000 average? I’ll tell you: it would have show a pretty cold winter, as everyone looking at his heating bill will know.
Ed,
Using 1950-2000 doesn’t show any colder of a winter than 1895-2000. In fact, it shows a warmer past winter for the parts that were warmer than normal. Here’s 1950-2000:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=7&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
There is a lot to criticize NOAA for, but lets be fair and accurate in the criticism.
Oopps bad math
Should read
That’s plus +20% and does not take into account the UHI effect.
It’s been a long cold winter.
Dorlomin (04:48:02) :
I think you have your dates wrong. The drop was between 2006 and 2007. 2008 showed a small recovery in both minima and maxima.
minice
2003 6.032031
2004 5.784688
2005 5.315156
2006 5.781719
2007 4.254531
2008 4.707813
how about a recent report issued by MIT double its previous projections for the temperature increase humanity faces if there is no action to curb emissions.
http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=990
Here is the abstract:
“The MIT Integrated Global System Model is used to make probabilistic projections of climate change from 1861 to 2100. Since the model’s first projections were published in 2003 substantial improvements have been made to the model and improved estimates of the probability distributions of uncertain input parameters have become available. The new projections are considerably warmer than the 2003 projections, e.g., the median surface warming in 2091 to 2100 is 5.1°C compared to 2.4°C in the earlier study. Many changes contribute to the stronger warming; among the more important ones are taking into account the cooling in the second half of the 20th century due to volcanic eruptions for input parameter estimation and a more sophisticated method for projecting GDP growth which eliminated many low emission scenarios. However, if recently published data, suggesting stronger 20th century ocean warming, are used to determine the input climate parameters, the median projected warming at the end of the 21st century is only 4.1°C. Nevertheless all our simulations have a very small probability of warming less than 2.4°C, the lower bound of the IPCC AR4 projected likely range for the A1FI scenario, which has forcing very similar to our median projection. The probability distribution for the surface warming produced by our analysis is more symmetric than the distribution assumed by the IPCC due to a different feedback between the climate and the carbon cycle, resulting from a different treatment of the carbon-nitrogen interaction in the terrestrial ecosystem.”
Do you want to gamble??
“For the no policy scenario, the researchers concluded that there is now a nine percent chance (about one in 11 odds) that the global average surface temperature would increase by more than 7°C (12.6°F) by the end of this century, compared with only a less than one percent chance (one in 100 odds) that warming would be limited to below 3°C (5.4°F).”
MIT’s conclusion?
“The take home message from the new greenhouse gamble wheels is that if we do little or nothing about lowering greenhouse gas emissions that the dangers are much greater than we thought three or four years ago,” said Ronald G. Prinn, professor of atmospheric chemistry at MIT. “It is making the impetus for serious policy much more urgent than we previously thought.”
Ron de Haan (01:38:34) :
w.r.t : Domingo Tavella (10:51:47) :
CO2-induced cooling? Are you joking?
Ah well now.
In the late 1970’s the BBC were educating us about Global Cooling.
“One missed summer and we would be plunged into the next Ice Age”, we were told in an alarming voice. (I can still remember this being said. Yes Plunged in the next Ice Age.)
What was causing this uncontrollable run away cooling?
The BBC said it was a gas called Carbon Dioxide.
Take it your looking a bit puzzled.
No Ron it was no joke, trust me.
Then, according to the BBC, CO2 made plants grow much faster and they were releasing more Oxygen into the atmosphere. There you have it, the Northern Hemisphere greens up every summer and releases extra Oxygen which in turn was cooling the planet.
The BBC even showed us satellite images taken from SPACE!!
Wow!!!
The images clearly showed Europe turning green during the summer.
Proof beyond proof an image from Space that showed a changing world which was all our fault.
This was real cutting edge science.
What else would you have expected from the BBC?
We had a special BBC program called “The Weather Machine”.
The CO2 was cooling the planet, we were clearly doomed as a new Ice Age was on its way and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
They were spot on as usual.
Pen Hadow, Arctic “Explorer” is moving backwards while walking forwards to the North Pole. Actually getting much closer to his start point on Day 12 than he was on Day 6. BBC is giving plenty of coverage on a daily basis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7897392.stm
He seems amazed that the ice he is standing/walking on is moving. And they are having a rest because it is so cold. -50ºC and looking for signs of melting?
I wonder how much funding he raised by using the code phrase “Global Warming – Melting Ice Caps”?
FYI: AMO dipped in February to -0.113
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/correlation/amon.us.long.data
AMO has not been that low since 1994 when it switched from cool phase to warm phase.
PDO was at -0.155 for feb
Also, it is something I’ve been predicting since December:
Spotless years & PDO and AMO
http://solarcycle24com.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=globalwarming&action=display&thread=319
Interesting disconnect between NOAA and our local meteorologists in FL. Last week our TV meteorologist announced that the ‘winter’ average temperature in FL was 3.3 F below normal. NOAA indicates that FL was ‘near normal’. Does a -3.3 F anomaly count as ‘near normal?”
chris y … that’s just weatherspeak ☺
10 degrees below average and they say “Slightly cooler than average.”
5 degrees below average and they say “near normal”
At average and they say “average but a warming trend”
5 degrees above average and they say “Well above average. Extreme heat.”
10 degrees above average and they say “We are doomed!” ☺
I spent Jan-Feb in Florida south of Tampa. Every day the paper prints the expected temperature and the seasonal avg for the date. We averaged close to 10 deg F below normal consistently, yes there were a few days at or even a couple degrees above normal but mostly below. Long time residents called it their coldest Jan-Feb in memory. Meanwhile, back home in NH according to my electric and propane companies we had another strongly below normal winter with lots more snow than avg. Why are the utility companies claiming extreme cold degree days?
This ‘anecdotal’ evidence makes me very skeptical of a report that has both Florida and NH as ‘normal’.
For some reason I did a quick search as to when the winters in Ontario was cold enough to freeze the Niagara falls over. This is very interesting. We know that it froze over in 1848 and in 1911. Some people say that it also froze in 1934. In 1848 they were just coming out of a solar minimum. We can also guess that it must have been frozen during the Maunder minimum.
Generally, the freeze over of Niagara falls seems to happen not during the minima but sometime during the recovery of solar activity.
It would certainly be interesting to see if those dates also correspond to other records and if they relate to the PDO.
Could it be possible that by 2020 Niagara falls freeze over again? If that is the case, we are on for very harsh winters in the years to come.
Check those pictures: http://www.seanbuckley.ca/blog/2006/08/28/niagara-falls-was-frozen-in-1911/
Tell me how can you have 6.7 million square miles of land mass covered with snow yet have higher than average temperatures?
Maybe its being caused by the millions of tons of oil and gas being burned to keep from freezing to death.
What is the problem with the earth getting warmer anyway, it would save me a fortune if I didnt have to burn so much expensive gas these greens and global warming bandits are never satisified.
A warmer planet means we use less natural resources to keep warm, just remember to leave the airconditioning unit on low when it gets too hot.
The only time you win is when you die, no more energy bills and seeing as we are all going there anyway at some point in time think everyone should find some more interesting to do that faf about worrying whether you are going to fry or freeze.
Why do so many people still besotted with computers and its computers that are turning out all of this gibberish, burn the bloody things and then we can just get on with our lives.
Who said dementia only affects the old?
David Wells