From the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), State of the Climate, National Overview, October 2009:
Temperature Highlights – October
- The average October temperature of 50.8°F was 4.0°F below the 20th Century average and ranked as the 3rd coolest based on preliminary data.
- For the nation as a whole, it was the third coolest October on record. The month was marked by an active weather pattern that reinforced unseasonably cold air behind a series of cold fronts. Temperatures were below normal in eight of the nation’s nine climate regions, and of the nine, five were much below normal. Only the Southeast climate region had near normal temperatures for October.
- Statewide temperatures coincided with the regional values as all but six states had below normal temperatures. Oklahoma had its coolest October on record and ten other states had their top five coolest such months.
- Florida was the only state to have an above normal temperature average in October. It was the sixth consecutive month that the Florida’s temperature was above normal, resulting in the third warmest such period (May-October).
- The three-month period (August-October) was the coolest on record for three states: Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Five other states had top five cool periods: Missouri (2nd), Iowa (3rd) , Arkansas (5th) , Illinois (5th) and South Dakota (5th) . Every climate division in Kansas (nine) and Nebraska (eight) recorded a record cool such period.
- For the year-to-date (January – October) period, the contiguous U.S. temperature ranked 43rd warmest. No state had a top or bottom ten temperature value for this period.
Precipitation Highlights – October
- The U.S. recorded its wettest October in the 115-year period of record. The nationwide precipitation of 4.15 inches was nearly double the long-term average of 2.11 inches.
- Regionally, two of the nation’s nine climate regions (the East North Central and South) saw their wettest October. The Central region had its second wettest October, while the West North Central had its fourth wettest. This was the first month since December 2007 that no region had below normal precipitation.
- Three states (Iowa, Arkansas, and Louisiana) saw their record wettest October. Fourteen other states had precipitation readings ranking in their top five category. Only three states (Florida, Utah, and Arizona) saw below normal precipitation.
- Arkansas continued its remarkable run of wetness in 2009. The state has seen four months with top three precipitation ranks this year (May, 1st wettest; July, 3rd wettest; September, 2nd wettest; October, 1st wettest). As a result, the state’s year-to-date average is the wettest in 115 years of record keeping. This contrasted with persistent dryness in Arizona, which saw its second-driest year-to-date period.
- The three-month (August-October) rainfall was record-setting for many adjacent divisions within Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. It is noteworthy that this occurred despite only one tropical cyclone (Claudette, in August) making landfall in the region during this period.
- By the end of October, moderate-to-exceptional drought covered 12 percent of the contiguous United States, the second-smallest drought footprint of the decade, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor. Major drought episodes in California and South Texas improved significantly. Drought conditions emerged across much of Arizona.
- About 45 percent of the contiguous United States had moderately-to-extremely wet conditions at the end of October, according to the Palmer Index (a well-known index that measures both drought intensity and wet spell intensity). This is the largest such footprint since February 2005.
Other Items of Note
- According to the NOAA Midwest Regional Climate Center in Champaign, Illinois, more than half of the long-term stations in the Midwest had one of their five wettest Octobers on record, with one out of five observing its wettest. Combined with the cold, this delayed crop planting and stunted crop maturity. Corn development was as much as four weeks behind in places, and the soybean harvest was well behind schedule throughout the region.
- Two major snow storms hit the contiguous United States during October. The first struck the Upper Midwest October 9th through 13th, while the second blanketed the western Plains States October 27th through 30th. By month’s end, 13.6 percent of the nation was under snow cover, according to NOAA’s National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center.
- Unusually cold and wet conditions across the middle of the country led to several snowfall records. Cheyenne, Wyoming observed 28 inches of snow during October, making this the city’s snowiest October on record. North Platte, Nebraska recorded 30.3 inches of snowfall, making October 2009 the snowiest month of all months on record for the city. The previous record was 27.8 inches, in March 1912.
- October, like September, saw below-normal fire activity in all respects. A total of 3,207 fires burned about 158,000 acres in October, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center. Each of these values is below this decade’s average for October.
- Precipitation Highlights – October
- The U.S. recorded its
wettest October in the 115-year period of record. The nationwide precipitation of 4.15 inches was nearly double the long-term average of 2.11 inches.
Regionally, two of the nation’s nine climate regions (the
East North Central and
South) saw their wettest October. The
Central region had its second wettest October, while the
West North Central had its fourth wettest. This was the first month since December 2007 that no region had below normal precipitation.
- Three states (
Iowa,
Arkansas, and
Louisiana) saw their record wettest October.
Fourteen other states had precipitation readings ranking in their top five category. Only three states (Florida, Utah, and Arizona) saw below normal precipitation.
- Arkansas continued its remarkable run of wetness in 2009. The state has seen four months with top three precipitation ranks this year (May, 1st wettest; July, 3rd wettest; September, 2nd wettest; October, 1st wettest). As a result, the state’s
year-to-date average is the wettest in 115 years of record keeping. This contrasted with persistent dryness in
Arizona, which saw its second-driest year-to-date period.
- The three-month (August-October) rainfall was record-setting for many
adjacent divisions within Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. It is noteworthy that this occurred despite only one tropical cyclone (Claudette, in August) making landfall in the region during this period.
- By the end of October, moderate-to-exceptional drought covered 12 percent of the contiguous United States, the second-smallest drought footprint of the decade, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor. Major drought episodes in California and South Texas improved significantly. Drought conditions emerged across much of Arizona.
- About 45 percent of the contiguous United States had moderately-to-extremely wet conditions at the end of October, according to the Palmer Index (a well-known index that measures both drought intensity and wet spell intensity). This is the largest such footprint since February 2005.
- Other Items of Note
- According to the NOAA Midwest Regional Climate Center in Champaign, Illinois, more than half of the long-term stations in the Midwest had one of their five wettest Octobers on record, with one out of five observing its wettest. Combined with the cold, this delayed crop planting and stunted crop maturity. Corn development was as much as four weeks behind in places, and the soybean harvest was well behind schedule throughout the region.
- Two major snow storms hit the contiguous United States during October. The first struck the Upper Midwest October 9th through 13th, while the second blanketed the western Plains States October 27th through 30th. By month’s end, 13.6 percent of the nation was under snow cover, according to NOAA’s National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center.
- Unusually cold and wet conditions across the middle of the country led to several snowfall records. Cheyenne, Wyoming observed 28 inches of snow during October, making this the city’s snowiest October on record. North Platte, Nebraska recorded 30.3 inches of snowfall, making October 2009 the snowiest month of all months on record for the city. The previous record was 27.8 inches, in March 1912.
- October, like September, saw below-normal fire activity in all respects. A total of 3,207 fires burned about 158,000 acres in October, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center. Each of these values is below this decade’s average for October.
jorgekafkazar (09:50:19) :
Your comments about the Arctic Sea Ice is part of concern.Heat loss.Cold air,
and the Polar jet makes me very nervous about the coming winter.El Nino
is not going to be as big a factor this year…
Isn’t this what we could expect?
Cosmic radiation is at record levels, so we have more clouds than normal.
More clouds reflect incoming radiation more, so the air gets cooler.
Meanwhile, the oceans are still warm, so more evaporation and more clouds mean more rain.
The sunspots are still not there, the magnetic field is declining, so we can expect more of the same for a few more years.
RR Kampen: what you say about Scandinavia isn’t quite right: The northernmost part of Norway was AFAIK slightly above normal because of above normal SST in the arctic. Southeast Norway (Oslo) was well below normal, and drier than normal. I.e. A wonderful October with lots of sunshine, golden trees and cold nights with hoarfrost in the morning.
It seems most of the US has experienced temperature variation recently that just happens to line up with calendar dates. So we have very warm or very cold months. So far November is following the trend and will be warm. Does that mean December will be cold?
It’s kind of like a hockey game in slow motion where one side heads down the ice to the cheers of their fans and then the other side gets the puck, heads the other way and the cheers come from their fans.
SteveSadlov (10:06:00) : :”This should be studied in depth. I think it gives insights, in a small scale way, what the onset of ice advance might look like. Imagine if this happened not only for a month, but month after month, for several decades.”
Probably won’t happen that way. Negative feedbacks usually act to swing the temperature pendulum back the other way. An overall trend may exist, but it will not be visible over the short run. The ocean has to cool for any persistent anomaly to become established. The ocean is 1160 times as big a heat-sink as the atmosphere.
No problem with the map colors, folks. If we think of “normal” as a precise temperature, rather than a range, then the line dividing the pink areas and the light blue areas (ranges), represents the “normal” points. Hope this is some help for those who miss the non-existent “white” areas.
Mark Fawcett (02:16:06) :
Sorry OT (long) – BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme (their top slot morning, serious news affair) just had Ian Plimer on… I nearly crashed the car.
Mark — brilliant letter. We all ought to be regularly contacting news media and politicians with this kind of input. It may feel like a “pebble in the ocean,” but we must make any effort we can to counter the insanity that otherwise will consume us — and, make no mistake, such insanity CAN consume our civilization — it has happened before and will probably happen again, but we can’t just roll over and let it happen. We cannot assume “The Enlightenment” is a permanent feature of Western Civilization. It is only permanent if we make it so by denying those who prefer the world be driven by myth and unscientific belief. Luddites, Malthusians, and Communists will always be with us; however, they must be marginalized because their ideas do not work or add to human happiness; quite the contrary.
More details on Scandinavian weather: Even the North Sea city of Kristiansand on the south tip of Norway had an October 1.7°C below normal: http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Vest-Agder/Kristiansand/Kristiansand/statistics.html
Hammerfest, close to the North Cape, was a mere 0.1°C above normal:
http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Finnmark/Hammerfest/Hammerfest/statistics.html
And the southernmost part of Scandinavia, Denmark, had a very cold October too, 1.2°C below the 1961-1990 normal, and 4.3°C below the record warm October 2006:
http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/vejret_i_danmark_-_oktober_2009
I don’t know where RR Kampen got his information from, but it contradicts official Norwegian and Danish statistics.
“”” DaveE (10:16:35) :
George E. Smith (09:35:39) :
I’d be careful with J. Arthur Rank! I know what you mean but a J. Arthur is rhyming slang for a word sounding like rank. 😉
DaveE. “””
Well Dave I must be living under a haystack; because I don’t have even the faintest glimmer of an idea of what the blazes you are referring to.
Suffice it to say that J Arthur Rank, was and maybe still is the largest British movie film producer; but then that was 50 years ago so who knows now.
If the name happens to have some other connotation to other people for evidently some reason you don’t even feel you want to disclose; then that is THEIR problem to deal with; not mine.
One thing I am not ever going to do is try to rearrange the whole English language; or even the American translation of it; to suit some mental blockage that happens in other people’s minds.
If it is in the OED or even in Websters; I am going to use it to mean exactly what those authorities say it means; and I won’t be changing any time soon to suit any person’s or groups hijacking of the language to corrupt its meaning.
I won’t be using any artificially created neuter or euphemistic words to tip toe around somebody else’s self imposed sensitivity to the language; as I say; those problems are in their heads; not mine; so they will have to deal with them.
When a person is under guard in hospital recovering from gunshot wounds inflicted on him; while he was in the act of brandishing a pair of special laser sighted killer guns, and taking down some 50 people with them; fourteen of them fatally; I am not going to describe him as an alleged anything. Alleged is what computer climate models generate; what a hundred or so eye witnesses observe, and what a hospital bed contains, is NOT (to me) an alleged anything; he’s at least a terrorist and if the CIC of those many victims is too damn dumb to see that; he should resign and let somebody competent do the job; even the dummy who is waiting in the wings should that ever be necessary.
If special interest groups of any ilk, want to take over portions of the language as if they are their property; and then bastardize the meaning of those words to suit their own ends; well then WE will have communication problems; because I’m not joining the parade.
when I click on those two “picture” above, I just get links to a blank page; well on my browser anyway, so I have no idea what is in those two pictures.
November has been warm here so far, but a sizable cooldown is expected next week.
Also, for those who spend all their time tracking the weather, Intellicast has a new high tech toy to watch things like temps, SST’s, and cloud cover (to see if Svensmark’s theory is working or not), this should allow for better weather guesses for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and scientists alike.
http://www.intellicast.com/Local/Map.aspx?weather=tempcon
Living in Kansas I can’t resist:
It was worse than I thought!
Richard (10:35:10) :
Yep it is blistering hot there. But 4 billion thats just the weather. The climate says the past months temperatures have been normal to cool. Past 12 months normal mostly.
Tell me when the temperature reaches 4 billion.
Agree its a weather pattern but we in the lower parts of Australia are seeing more of it. We only have been here 200 years so its hard to know, but some of the records we are breaking now happened around the start of last century at a time of lower sunspot activity. Maybe if its not about TSI and more about other solar impacts the pressure cells over our part of the world are following a different pattern that sets up these unusual weather events. The current high pressure cells are not like we usually get.
This is probably the normal El Nino cycle hey, USA is cool so Australia will be warm this summer?
Harold Ambler (07:45:16) : From the report:
“Florida was the only state to have an above normal temperature average in October. It was the sixth consecutive month that the Florida’s temperature was above normal, resulting in the third warmest such period (May-October).”
Let’s see….. we had very little effects from tropical storms and no hurricanes so the period lacked the cooling effect of those. We had a consistant wind pattern from the west that kept a lot of tropical air away limiting afternoon thunderstorms. That same wind pattern also blocked several fronts coming down from the Midwest that usually bring some atmospheric destabilization, rain and slightly cooler temps. I wonder if this is consistant with a year when an El Nino is developing?
“No problem with the map colors, folks. If we think of “normal” as a precise temperature,”
If normal was a “precise” number, there would be no need to take an average, everyone would know precisely what the normal temperature for their area for every day of the year. We could program that precise temperature, that normal temperature, into our laptops and with the clock and gps available on the computer, we would know precisely what the precise normal temperature is for every moment…
NSF Press Release 09-222 November 12, 2009
Record Highs Far Outpace Record Lows Across U.S.
Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows.
The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.
Blimey, what manner of new fangled meaningless statistic is this?
Speaking of the ‘normal’ map… I believe that + or – two degrees from the average is a pretty good description of the warm phase of the PDO, of course normal would be a little lower for the cool phase.
So the light blue and the pink in the map above are probably a pretty good indicator of October normals for the last thirty years
As is ice in hot water will melt and the water will cool — Earth is warming and icecaps are melting, but the lower latitudes are cooling because of the icebergs and hence less hurricanes to form in the cooler waters. Eventually global warming will cause global cooling because of the conveyor belt of water will have stopped significantly. When the conveyor belt becomes stagnate the earth will start to freeze as water is one of the major driving forces of earths climate. Also, all of the planets in the solar system are heating up indicating humans are not the cause of the global warming.
This is the kind of “extreme weather” we’re likely to see more often in a warming world, lol,
Link to Ian Plimer interview audio:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00np17v
Starts around 2:52:00.
Mark Fawcett (02:16:06) : fantastic letter, mate. Very well written.
Grant in Melbourne, Australia
L (11:34:35) :
I’d rather think of normal as something akin to within +/- 1 standard deviation of average, and average to be a precise temperature. Exactly how to determine the average is can be a subject of major dispute over sample size, time period and statistics.
If the average high temperature for some date is 25°, then almost certainly I’d expect that some year when the temperature is 26° or 24° it would still be considered normal weather instead of abnormally warm or cool.
jon doe (16:23:12) :
So far, everyone who has made that claim hasn’t been able to back it up with a good source of data or papers supporting that claim. (Mars may be an exception,
but it’s only one planet.)
References would be very welcome!
Ric Werme (17: 25:49) I posted a study done of Neptune over 30 years that showed warming. Leif Svalgaard dismissed it saying that it represented only 2 months “Neptune Time”. I do not believe that his dismissal changed the fact that Neptune has been warming for 30 years (albeit earth time). Found this “antique” during a google search. Lockwood and Hammel study. http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/05/global_warming_on_neptune.html
It may be a heat wave in several areas of Aussie right now, but it isn’t crossing the ditch to New Zealand. Two frosts this week here on the Manawatu plains just to top up a record breaking year for frosts in the past three decades.
As a Kiwi I think that Anthony’s use of “bugger off,” was quite appropriate in the circumstances, i.e. the recipient would have understood perfectly the intent of the message.
Goodonyamate!