Will April be the 100th Warmest On Record?

NOAA monthly weather summaries normally describe the month in terms of their warmness ranking.  April is looking like an interesting month, with remarkably consistent cold across the entire US.  Much of the center of the country has been 2 to 6 degrees below normal. In parts of the Dakotas, 10 or more degrees below normal.
Perhaps the rest of the month will be much warmer?  Not likely, NCEP forecasts continued cold through at least the 20th.
Will this month of severe global warming be described as the “100th warmest?”
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chad
April 14, 2009 12:01 pm

Central England is currently 2.7C above average for April so far

Adam from Kansas
April 14, 2009 12:19 pm

I looked at NOAA’s SST animation and there’s been general warming of the oceans except for the southern sea over the last two months, even so SST’s fell quite a bit at the beginning of this year and may be going to another peak, though it might end up smaller than the last one made last year. The southern sea still sees some very below normal SST anomalies that are trying to spread north in spots excluding the areas that are now frozen. North Atlantic is warming, PDO still in a strong negative phase, ENSO still neutral (though SOI has been climbing on the La Nina side)

Steve M.
April 14, 2009 12:32 pm

We’re talking about April temperatures, and GISS hasn’t even released March’s yet??? LOL

April 14, 2009 12:33 pm

For Los Angeles, April 2009, 1st through the 13th:
Month to date heating degree days: 44 (normal) 43
Month to date cooling degree days: 5 (normal) 24

Fewer cooling degree days than normal indicates fewer hot days where air conditioning is needed; e.g. it is COOLER than normal.
About the same heating degree days as normal indicates it is not hotter (there would be fewer HDD in that case).
Hmmmmm….methinks that little yellow dot for Los Angeles is based on different data, or is wrong.
This data is from
http://weather.latimes.com/US/CA/Los_Angeles.html?almanac=1
apparently source is Weather Underground.

Tom P
April 14, 2009 12:40 pm

Wandering Aloud,
“At this point any “anomaly” number that shows continued “warming” is simply prooving that the method for calculating the anomaly is junk.”
You might want to discuss your views with Roy Spencer – a contributor to this site – and who is Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer and has responsibility for the anomaly numbers released.

Tom P
April 14, 2009 12:53 pm

Steve,
“The UAH April anomaly will likely be down from March”
Thanks for the weather forecast. Would you care to predict the 2009 anomaly will be down from 2008?
“…and about half a degree lower than April, 1998.”
No doubt – though the upwards trend is hardly affected by the Super El Niño of that year:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/32/rssdata.png

K
April 14, 2009 1:11 pm

re Basil’s 8:44 comment.
Thanks for providing that link to the Japanese temperature maps. They are a superb example of how to present information.

Ron de Haan
April 14, 2009 2:11 pm
gary gulrud
April 14, 2009 2:19 pm

“No doubt – though the upwards trend is hardly affected by the Super El Niño of that year”
We’ve already hashed that linear trend nonsense of cyclic data over, and over, and over, ad nauseum. Take out the ’99 Super La Nina too and then show us your fool trend.

JoeH
April 14, 2009 2:37 pm

Here in Chicago, daily average temperatures for April have been 3.9 degrees F below daily norm. Since January 1st, daily temps have averaged 1.45 degrees F below normal. Data is from O’Hare and available at Accuweather.
We will have to reach at least 3 degrees above average every day for the balance of April for the monthly value to reach normal.
Will be at Wrigley Field tomorrow where the forecast high is 43. I think we are attending a baseball game, not a football contest, but you certainly can’t tell from the temperatures.

James P
April 14, 2009 2:38 pm

chad (12:01:43) :
Central England is currently 2.7C above average for April so far

Well, it helps make up for the freezing January and February! Early Feb had the most snow since 1991 according to the Met Office.
That will have been weather rather than climate though, I expect.. 🙂

Just Want Truth...
April 14, 2009 2:40 pm

E.M.Smith (04:04:35) :
P Folkens (22:58:21) :
I’m in the San Francisco East Bay—COLD wind today, supposed to go down in to the 30’s tonight

Just Want Truth...
April 14, 2009 2:45 pm

From the front page at Lubos Motl’s :
“GISS data for March 2009 are out. With the global anomaly of 0.47 °C, March 2009 is reported as the coldest March since 2000 – and colder than March 1990 and 1998, despite the ending La Nina that is being superseded by ENSO-neutral conditions. That puts March 2009 out of the “top ten” ”
ref
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/04/giss-march-2009-coolest-march-in-this.html

Russ R.
April 14, 2009 2:57 pm

Today’s forecast in Chicago is for more of the same. The windchills are brutal for mid-April :
Chicago area’s 11th consecutive day of below normal temperatures. Blustery, damp and unseasonably cool. Early March level temperatures — averaging more than 15 degrees below normal! Periods of light rain and drizzle from a heavy overcast. Northeast winds 10 to 22 m.p.h. with occasional gusts to 25 to 30 m.p.h. generate windchills hovering between 28 and 35 degrees. Remaining cloudy Tuesday night, chilly and a bit breezy. Several sprinkles possible.

Steve Goddard
April 14, 2009 3:04 pm

Tom P,
What happened to the Super El Nino of 2007?
Do you think Dr. H is on track for his prediction of 2009 beating 1998?

Ron de Haan
April 14, 2009 3:19 pm

GISS March colder, GISS April will show a similar trend.
A quiet sun: sinking temperatures, more earthquakes and more volcanic activity
“The increase in volcanism and major earthquakes in recent years and some aspects of triggering of earthquakes are related to changes in solar activity.
“The incidence of some earthquakes (eg Yellowstone US data) appears to increase around both sunspot maxima and sunspot minima which is when the solar wind (the million mph flood of charged particles from the sun) is greatest or least. These times are when the effect of the solar wind to slow the spin of the
earth is greatest or least – changing from increasing to decreasing at the maximum and from decreasing to increasing at the miniumum. – see first graph below: http://www.handpen.com/Bio/yellowst.jpg

Ron de Haan
April 14, 2009 3:36 pm

More on the sun, cosmic dust, increasing earthquake numbers weather and sinking temps: http://www.handpen.com/Bio/sun_freaks.html#Details

peer
April 14, 2009 3:57 pm

Northeast usa is dead frozen. Only Giss could come up with a number that says slightly warmer than usual.
all plants are 2-4 weeks behind. there are no or only few buds on trees. central heating runs all the time. the ground and air is too cold to plant in.
but its warmer than a mythological trendline on the Giss map?

peer
April 14, 2009 4:13 pm

bill , I did not understood what you meant by this: Also note that the trendline has been adjusted upwards by 0.425C from the original raw data.
which is the original raw data

Editor
April 14, 2009 6:11 pm

Chuck L (03:58:51) :

“Don Shaw (21:36:27) :
I could be wrong but the Map that shows New jersey slightly warmer than normal does not seem to match the actual observations. …
Don – here in NE NJ, the average temperature so far in April, according to my weather station is 3.1 degees F below normal. Normal is based on long-time NJ climatological records. It is definitely not above normal, at least here in backyard!

Last September I challenged the New Jersey readers to look into what’s being reported because I didn’t have time. I still don’t have time….
See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/11/noaa-august-2008-is-22nd-warmest-on-record/#comment-38647 for more.

Mike Bryant
April 14, 2009 6:26 pm

Even the plants and the planet are conspiring to make James Hansen look wrong.
“Grow, grow you blasted plants!!!! Don’t you know that’s it’s warm out there? Here, corn, take a little gander at this here graph I’ve prepared for you in fourteen glorious colors! And you, earth, how can you be frozen? It’s warm!! It’s WARMMM!!!”
Enter two white coated orderlies with a straitjacket….

April 14, 2009 6:47 pm

The last ten years have been the warmest in the history of the planet,
And, according to the new cosmological global warming theory, with the GISS algorithms applied Earth is also the hottest planet in the known universe.
Only Giss could come up with a number that says slightly warmer than usual.
Well, it’s easy when you adjust the data so that 100 years ago everything was frozen.

Editor
April 14, 2009 8:00 pm

> Steve Goddard (10:30:23) :
> Tom P,
> The UAH April anomaly will likely be down from
> March, and about half a degree lower than April, 1998.
Only if the UAH daily temperature data is totally broken. So far this month, UAH LT is 0.200 above last year, and Ch04 is 0.218 above last year. My quicky regression using LT data looks wonky. Going with the CH04 regression, it looks like April 2009 will be +0.58, unless we have a couple of cold weeks worldwide.

LarryOldtimer
April 14, 2009 8:58 pm

Hmmmmm . . . “normal” . . . now what exactly is meant by that? Of course, the “normal” temperature is that tempertature which it rarely is.
My point being, none of the temperatures I have seen in my many years have been any way in the least “abnormal”.