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.
Only just caught up after a busy week.
Hot in Sth Australia, delightfully cool here in Nth coastal Queensland, due to strong SE trades, heavy cloud, and heavy rain. Many official reports of from 2 to 8 degrees C below normal. Just had 185 mm of beautiful rain to end a long dry spell.
“Bugger” used to be considered a mild swear word here, definitely not for polite conversation, so the “bugger” ad for Toyota a couple of years ago caused much hand wringing for us teachers- every kid was trying it out at school. “Buggered” means worn out, finished, tired, no good any more, upter. Euphemism for the f word (check the dictionary meaning).
What about record cloudiness. Texas shattered the old record in October.
My friend lives in Minneapolis and I did notice the cold weather in October, but it does seem to show a nice warm November up to now, even more so than the UK! It will be interesting to see the November graphic for comparison on WUWT.
Andy
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=national&image=timeseries01&byear=2009&bmonth=10&year=2009&month=10&ext=gif&id=110-00
looks like a hockey stick to me!!!!!!
only this one scares the poop out of me.
With the Georgia Tech land use study in mind couldn’t October 2009 really have been the coldest October ever on record?
Did Pyramid Lake in Nevada turn pink?
😉
All that red in Florida reminds me of that land use study from Florida State :
That evidence leads Winsberg and FSU meteorologists to blame the hot spots on local land-use changes that accentuate the urban “heat-island” effect — the pools of heat that large, dense concentrations of people produce in their local climates. Cutting down trees, draining wetlands and pouring concrete all make a place hotter, as anyone who’s walked across an asphalt parking lot on a summer day knows, Winsberg says.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/10/floridatrend-its-hot-but-dont-blame-global-warming/
Richard (02:52:47) :
janama (00:12:40) : Sure – you are having colder starts to winter and we are having a warmer start to summer down in the southern hemi.
It’s called climate change – as it does.
Not where I am. The whole of NZ is cooler than normal.
What I think is going on here is just the “Lava Lamp Effect”. We have a decade or three of heating the oceans, now, suddenly, the poles have gone cold with the various quiet sun and PDO flip. Lots of heat radiating out to space.
Now you have extra heat at the equator and extra cold at the poles. The blobs of hot air (and water?) headed for the poles and cold blobs headed for the equator are each more extreme than “a while ago”. And depending which side of the interface between the blobs you are on, it’s rather warm, or OMG Get the Jacket and Light The Furnace!
IMHO, as time passes and the cold phase continues, this will eventually slow down into a generally colder world. I’d guess about 10 to 15 years from now. (There is a lot of heat to move and air is not all that good at it…).
Per Florida: We didn’t have any hurricanes to speak of. They are the pipelines taking Gulf hot water heat to space. No hurricanes, water stays warm, Florida stays warm… (Until the blobs flow…)
Sidebar: TWC forcasting “Winter Storm Warning” with snow for Denver and related mountain areas… It’s THE BLOB from Cananda! 9-)
Per “Bugger”: if it’s been on TV in commercials, it’s lost it’s “punch”.
And I’m with George on the more obscure innuendo. If it’s in the OED, I’m using it. I’ll not be niggardly in my use of all the words available to me and in their proper meaning. If somebody has a problem from the fantasies in their head, those fantasies are not coming into my head. I’m just not into the PC thing and do not let it have entry to my brain. (It is very important to keep a tidy mind and I don’t have enough room in mine to keep track of every persons sensitivities. Heck, I can’t even keep all their names straight.)
FWIW English has a perfectly natural non-gender pronoun already. “They”. As in: ‘My cousin is coming to town and they like beer’. No need to invent any neo-tripe… You get a little confusion of number (Is “they” plural or singular?) that you pick up from context or just accept as being vague in both number and gender.
You just can’t let the lowest common denominator set the usage rules for the language. If you do, then the most insane and imbalanced in the society are given power over the rest; since they are the folks who will have the most “issues” based on nothing… Rather similar to the way AGW as a belief disorder is about to cause the rest of us no end of economic grief. When it comes to broken belief systems, of all kinds: Just Say No. Do it for the children and the Planet 😉
For example, I don’t like the name “blood sausage”. Do you all get to come up with some euphemism acceptable to me, or do I just “get over it”? I vote for ‘get over it’… (though I won’t eat it… strangely, I love liverwurst even though it is made from ‘a blood organ’… It’s a long story involving growing up in farm country).
Back on weather: Is there any metric for differential surface temperatures between sides of the jet stream (and whatever the SH equivalent might be?).
One of my gripes about an “average temp for the USA or N.America” is that it blends the two sides of the heat engine. I want to know how much heat differential is driving that engine not what the average is between the fire and the ice… One tells me how much power that heat engine can wield, the other tells me nothing.
About planets warming up: search for Triton, it has also been shown to be warming. However, I haven’t seen any news on Mars or Triton warming for a couple of years.
Is no one going to comment on the Arctic Ice levels
– lower than 2007!
Quote:
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. 😉
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.
Endquote.
I don’t thınk Cockney rhymıng slang ıs bıg ın the USA. It ıs (was) the tradıtıonal East End London language. Trouble ıs, the language of East London ıs no longer Cockney, ıts Bengalı.
Example:
Trouble and strıfe – wıfe
Bees and honey – money
Oxford scholar – dollar
Barnet faır – haır
So you could say:
”My trouble has got some Oxford bees to get her barnett done.”
And I thınk the noun of ‘Arthur’ ıs ‘Merchant’
.
Phil M: The relatively low sea ice is mainly due to high SST in the Barents Sea, I think. The Barents Sea has been in a “warm mode” for a few years now. The Barents sea temperature is correlated to the AMO:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/08/new-paper-barents-sea-temperature-correlated-to-the-amo-as-much-as-4°c/
– and the AMO is high but may have peaked in 2005, according to Bob Tisdale (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/10/countdown-to-an-unprecedented-warm-decade-2-months-to-go/)
Jet stream moving into a familiar pattern this weekend:
Here comes the cold.
http://www.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?partner=rss&traveler=0&article=7
About October weather in Germany:
http://www.dwd.de/bvbw/appmanager/bvbw/dwdwwwDesktop?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=dwdwww_menu2_presse&T98029gsbDocumentPath=Content%2FPresse%2FPressemitteilungen%2F2009%2F20090929__DeutschlandwetterimOktoberr2009__news.html
Executive summary: Very varying, but all in all 0.7 below normal. New October heat record, 30.9 degrees in Freiburg. The old record, also from Freiburg, was 0.1 degrees lower and from October 1985.
I have to add, as someone who has stayed in Freiburg several times, that extremely warm weather at unusual times in Freiburg is hardly sensational. Due to the proximity to the Alps, and thus the “Föhn” wind, the weather in Freiburg can turn from winter to summer and back again in a few hours.
(I think they use 1961-1990 for the “normal” temperature, which, I think was all in all a pretty cold period in Germany, colder than e.g. 1910-1940, at least for some stations)
In the 1960’s in New Hampshire a “bugger” (noun) was any person, but usually a child. Telling someone to “bugger off” meant they should scram or get lost. To “bugger up” a job meant you had botched the job.
When I went to school in Scotland in 1970 I learned I should not use the word bugger, because a “Bugger” (noun) meant someone guilty of sodomy, and to “bugger” (verb) meant to sodomize. I actually got in trouble for using the word, back then, and weeded it out of my vocabulary.
I give NCDC credit for not sugar coating this report. They could have easily pulled a NSIDC.
Gene Nemetz (23:00:18) : I live in Florida and believe me, we have been having an endless summer up until now.
That’s not global warming related at all. These things just happen from time to time.
Yes, a few years ago there was an official decision by the New Zealand media watchdog that the word “bugger” is OK to use. So definitely appropriate to use it to reply to a NZer.
On the temperature gradient map, the colors are all either “warm” or “cool”. Considering the uncertainty of the measurements, I would draw such a map with a white band in the middle, representing -1 to +1 degrees, i.e. “average” temperature. That NOAA does not do so indicates a lean to alarmism, I think.
We all know that if it happens in the US, that’s all that matters, right? I mean, we ARE the world, aren’t we? Get real, folks, and show the worldwide temperatures, not just US. This means nothing!
Kerry: The worldwide temperatures are right here on the right side of the page 🙂 (in Anthony’s weather widget)
Kerry (11:26:22) : ..Get real, folks, and show the worldwide temperatures, not just US. This means nothing!
Well how about this: “In China, heavy snowfall has led to the deaths of 38 people in road accidents and collapsed buildings, state-run media have reported.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8358162.stm
In Australia its blistering hot other places cool. Thats weather. No need to rush to the conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 done it.
Regarding arctic sea ice, while the area appears to be among the lowest in history (i.e., since satellite days), the DMI polar temperature, while much higher than usual, is still minus 20°C. Do we know if the water is warmer than usual this year?
IanM
timetochooseagain (10:01:52) :
I’m not saying it’s been mild there. I am saying temperature readings are off. Regardless of what summer is like there land use is still affecting temp readings. I think there would be less red in the map making readings closer to average if UHI was subtracted out.
PS you guys in South Australia moaning about the heat – I’ve solved the cause of it. No its not those microscopic amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere – its actually hot water from the Indian ocean arriving and piling up on your shores.
Watch it here. http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/sst/anom_anim.html
The waters arrive around the 5th of November and suddenly you move into a heat wave.
Looks like there might be an update to the US temperature for October.
The State of the Climate National Overview indicates that “the average October temperature of 50.8°F” is based on preliminary data.
The monthly state temperatures file on the NCDC FTP site shows October for the lower 48 at 51.30, a half a degree difference. Notice the 11th column of the last line of the relevant file at
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/drd964x.tmpst.txt
1100022009 31.20 37.50 43.80 51.90 62.60 69.50 73.50 72.70 67.10 51.30 -99.90 -99.90
51.3 degree vs. 50.8 degrees. The ftp file appears to be dated November 10, the day after the State of the Climate National Overview was created. Perhaps the difference reflects more up to date data.
The half-a-degree difference only affects the ranking slightly. According to the FTP site, October 2009 at 51.30 is in 4th place, behind October 1917 at 51.0.
Oddly, the Climate Summary page for the Contiguous US at
(http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html cont) indicates that it uses the above named file on the FTP site to generate reports upon request. However, creating a report for October still shows the 50.8 degrees for 2009.