February 11, 2016 - ALBERTA, CANADA - Warm weather broke over a dozen temperature records across Alberta on Tuesday, including in Edmonton.
The last record high temperature for Feb. 9 was set at 5.9 C at the
Edmonton International Airport in 1995. On Tuesday, temperatures reached
7.9 C, setting a new record.
Temperature records were also broken in Brooks, Calgary, Claresholm,
Drumheller, Grande Prairie, Jasper, Lethbridge, Lloydminster, Medicine
Hat, Peace River, Sundre and at the Waterton Park Gate.
Colin Fong, meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the above
average seasonal temperatures - which normally sit at -3.8 for this time
of year - are caused by a ridge of high pressure.
"That ridge is just kind of ushering in that warm air from the south,
keeping at bay all of those weather systems from the west," said Fong,
keeping skies clear and temperatures warm.
"The highs are definitely on the good side of history, but as we see
that ridge breaking down we're going to see that trend towards more of
the normal," warned Fong.
Fong said temperatures would hover around 0 C on Wednesday when
the ridge of high pressure breaks down, with periods of snow Wednesday
night and into Thursday.
"It's going to be a bit of a seesaw between precipitation, in this case
snow, and clear skies as we head into the weekend," Fong said.
While the warm weather may be a welcome break for some, for others it couldn't have come at a worse time.
The Canadian Birkenbeiner Ski Festival that was supposed to run this
weekend was cancelled - only the fourth time since the festival began in
1985 - leaving around a thousand registered skiers out in the cold when
it comes to their registration fees.
However, the Vikings Feast and Birkie Boogie is still going on this
Saturday at the County of Strathcona Community Centre, with tickets
still on sale until Wednesday night.
Edmonton's Ice Castle is still standing in Hawrelak Park, but organizers
warned it may not last as long as expected. The Ice Castle was
originally scheduled to be open until March, but warm temperatures have
organizers predicting the acre-sized Ice Castle may close to the public
by the end of February.
Organizers of the 10-day Silver Skate Festival opening in Hawrelak Park
on Friday remain unfazed by recent warm weather, planning to adapt as
needed.
Festival producer Erin Di Loreto said it wasn't the first time in the
festival's 26 year history where the weather has warmed, adding sunny
weather has sometimes helped bring more people out to the festival. Last
year, more than 85,000 people attended the Silver Skate Festival.
Students in the University of Alberta's environmental instrumentation
course took advantage of the weather to install research-grade weather
stations on top of the Tory building, gaining valuable hands-on
experience. - Edmonton Sun.
A south Sydney man's fly catcher from Bunnings almost filled up to the top in under a day.
February 6, 2016 - AUSTRALIA - A man has been left in awe after he purchased a fly catcher which filled up after just one day.
Myles Farrawell, from Sydney, posted the photo of his full contraption to Facebook which left social media users stunned.
'So I bought a fly trap from Bunnings yesterday and put it out yesterday
afternoon and just came home to find this wow !!!! Flys for dinner lol
[sic],' Mr Farrawell wrote. Flies are often a massive pest for
Australian's during the hot summer period, due to their attraction to
heat when mating.
Flies are commonly known to come out in massive numbers during the summer
Bryce Peters, General Manager for the Faculty of Science at University
of Technology Sydney, said the hot temperatures this summer could be a
direct link to the large amount of flies in Sydney's CBD. It could also
be the reason as to why this man caught so many flies in a day.
'When the weather gets warmer and more humid the flies are more active,'
Mr Peters said. Mr Peters, who is also from the Sutherland Shire, said
it is highly likely the flies are bush flies. 'Bush flies tend to breed
out in the west (Western Sydney) before being blown over to the city due
to the westerly winds'.
Australian Museum naturalist Martyn Robinson told the Daily Telegrapha combination of heavy rain and heat has caused a 'build up' of more flies over spring last year and summer this year. - Daily Mail.
December 30, 2015 - MOSCOW, RUSSIA - Winters in Russia are usually not for the faint of heart. From
temperatures buried in the negatives to cities grinding to a halt due to
snowfall, it’s essential you’re winter-ready.
This year though, it’s
panned out a little differently.
People may not be basking in sunshine but with Monday temperatures in Moscow and St. Petersburg at 9 Celsius (48.2 Fahrenheit), it’s certainly milder than people are used to.
Social media has been alight with imagery that wouldn’t look out of place in spring time Russia, with trees blossoming and normally snow-laden landscapes now green.
With average Moscow temperatures for December 2014 around -4 Celsius, Muscovites enjoyed warmer weather on Monday morning than the likes of New York (9C) and even Rome (8C), where Italians were practically freezing while eating their gelato.
On Monday, Moscow temperatures broke the 33-year-old warmth record.
The milder winter temperatures come following a record breaking 25C in September, the highest in 90 years.
While some parts of Russia are certainly enjoying fewer snow-filled days, not everyone is as lucky.
Places like Tyumen Region are enduring their expectedly cold temperatures and snow-covered lands, although it does result in some nice, albeit cold, sunsets. - RT.
Making waves: Billions of barrel jellyfish have been spotted in water off the coast of Devon and Cornwall
April 19, 2015 - BRITAIN - A mile-long jellyfish invasion has hit UK shores due to the warmer weather as temperatures are set to soar again next week bringing a two-day heatwave.
The swarm of jellyfish were spotted off the coast of Cornwall by a fisherman.
It comes as April has experienced temperatures which are almost double the average for the time of year.
The Met Office says the UK is set for another two days of warm weather as temperatures are predicted to rise to 69.8F (21C) on Tuesday, with them dropping to 68F (20C) on Wednesday.
Forecaster Emma Sillitoe said: "The temperatures are usually 13C to 14C at this time of year but on Tuesday we will see them rising to up to 21C in London and Southampton. On Wednesday they will remain high but but drop to 20C."
Last week the hottest day of the year so far was recorded at 77F (25C) at St James's Park in London.
The warm weather has seen an influx of jellyfish off the south coast.
Footage captured on a fishing boat off Falmouth Bay show swarms of barrel jellyfish gliding through calm water.
Wildlife enthusiast Ross Wheeler, who filmed them, said: “This video shows a section of a swarm which was like a carpet and approximately a mile long."
“We were out fishing and noticed thousands of barrel jelly fish across the bay... so many,
The huge Barrel Jellyfish, which can have tentacles of up to six feet long have been spotted off the south east coast, much earlier than they are normally seen in British waters.
They have been growing in numbers in recent years because of mild winters which have allowed plankton, which they feed on, to thrive.
The warm weather has also resulted in toxic algae in the Norfolk Broads rising by unprecedented levels for the time of year.
WATCH: Giant swarm of jellyfish more than a mile-long swim off the coast of Cornwall.
It led the Environment Agency to launch a rescue mission to relocate 500,000 fish to stop them suffocating.
The UK has also just enjoyed the sunniest winter since records began.
The previous record was in 2001, when there were 189 hours of sunshine. That mark was beaten this winter with the total hours of sunshine reaching 196.
The warmest ever April temperature was 66 years ago, when the mercury reached 84.9F (29.4C).
In April 2011, temperatures reached 81.3F (27.4C). - Telegraph.
April 08, 2014 - MEXICO - On a high mountain slope in central Mexico, a patch of fir trees looks
dusted in orange and black. In fact, millions of monarch butterflies
cloak the trees. The forest murmurs with the whir of their flapping
wings.
Two Monarch butterflies feed on a Blazing Star plant at the USDA Forest
Service's Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
on the site of the former
Joliet Arsenal in Wilmington, Illinois, Friday, September 1, 2006.
George Thompson / Chicago Tribune/MCT
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/31/4030249/the-butterfly-effect-do-monarchs.html#storylink=cpy
Every year, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies, each so light that 50 together weigh barely an ounce, find their way on what may be the world's longest insect migration, traveling the length of North America to pass the winter in central Mexico.
Yet the great monarch migration is in peril, a victim of rampant herbicide use in faraway corn and soybean fields, extreme weather, a tiny microbial pathogen and deforestation. Monarch butterfly populations are plummeting. The dense colonies of butterflies on central Mexican peaks were far smaller this year than ever before.
Scientists say Mexico's monarch butterfly colonies, as many as several million butterflies in one acre, are on the cusp of disappearing. If the species were to vanish, one of the few creatures emblematic of all North America, a beloved insect with powerhouse stamina that even school kids can easily identify, would be gone.
"We see these things as so delicate. But if they migrate a distance of some 2,000 miles, from Canada all the way down to Mexico, they are pretty tough," said Craig Wilson, a scientist at Texas A&M University.
The distinctive orange-and-black monarch is enshrined as the state insect or butterfly of Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, Vermont and West Virginia. It's also the symbol of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which binds Mexico, the United States and Canada.
When President Barack Obama met with Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Feb. 19 in Toluca, they agreed to establish a working group to ensure the conservation of the monarch butterfly.
Scientists who are studying the monarchs' decline cite many possible reasons, but they're focusing now on one major one: the decline in the United States of milkweed, a lowly broadleaf plant that's widely treated as a weed to be eradicated, doused with herbicides in farmlands and along highway shoulders. Milkweed is most common in the high-grass prairies of the Canadian and U.S. Midwest but its 70 varieties also grow along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, in the Caribbean and elsewhere.
Monarchs can't survive without milkweed.
Female monarchs lay eggs on milkweed. When they hatch, the larvae grow into caterpillars that feed on the milkweed's leaves. Those leaves contain a poison that inoculates the monarchs from their predators. The caterpillars then form chrysalises and emerge as butterflies.
Over the past decade, U.S. fields containing milkweed have declined sharply. Orley "Chip" Taylor, a monarch expert at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, calls the loss "massive."
"We've lost something like 24 million acres because of conversion of land to cropland. That's an area the size of Indiana," he said.
The advent of genetically modified corn and soybean varieties that can withstand herbicides has added to that loss. Now farmers employ glyphosate herbicides, such as Monsanto's Roundup, that kill weeds with a vengeance. It's had a huge impact on milkweed, which before could grow among crops or at the edges of fields.
"The crops survive but any weeds, including milkweed, don't," Wilson said.
WATCH: The monarch butterflies are starving for milkweed.
Faced with vast reductions in milkweed, the size of the colonies of monarchs escaping northern winters has shrunk radically in central Mexico.
Nearly two decades ago, in the winter of 1996-97, dense monarch colonies covered 44.9 acres of oyamel fir forest. In the 2013-14 winter, the colonies covered only 1.7 acres, a plunge of nearly 44 percent from the previous year. The trend seems inexorable, experts said.
"We must turn the tide for monarchs," said Omar Vidal, the president of WWF-Mexico, a branch of the Switzerland-based World Wide Fund for Nature.
Most monarchs live only a little more than a month. But one generation each year lives seven or eight months, long enough to migrate to central Mexico before winter sets in, where the butterflies settle into a semi-dormant state, often clustering around the same fir trees as their forebears, perhaps drawn by chemical cues. In the spring, the monarchs return to the north, where they lay eggs on milkweed and die, giving way to a new generation.
Other factors may be hurting the monarch population, including extreme conditions associated with climate change. A debilitating protozoan parasite, known in scientific shorthand as OE, also has exploded since 2002 and now affects 10 to 15 percent of monarchs, said Sonia Altizer, an ecologist at the University of Georgia who's studied monarchs for two decades.
While the dwindling monarch colonies worry scientists, who fear they may also be a warning of other environmental crises, in this region of Mexico the decline threatens people's livelihood. Butterfly tourism has grown since scientists first came across the dense winter colonies in 1975.Indigenous people had long known of the butterflies. The Purepecha people called the monarchs the "souls of the departed" because their arrival in early November coincided with festivals honoring the dead.
At the El Rosario gateway to the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve here in eastern Michoacan state, decals of monarchs adorn taxis. Lodges cater to butterfly lovers. To the lament of locals, tourism has dropped, hit by organized crime in other parts of the state as well as the shrinking butterfly colonies.
"It's not what we expected," said Fernando Guzman Cruz, a member of the El Rosario ejido, or communal agricultural community, that protects the reserve.
Only 55,000 visitors came this season, he said, a "50 percent drop" from a year earlier. He blamed the decline on U.S. agricultural practices hurting the monarch population.
"We want you to stop killing the milkweed," he told a U.S. visitor.
For years, Mexico received much of the blame for dwindling monarch populations. Scientists pointed to rampant illegal logging of the high-altitude oyamel firs the monarch favor. The government took action.
"A year and a half ago, we saw that large-scale logging had been reduced to practically zero," said Vidal of WWF-Mexico. Mexico has done its part.
Now blame has shifted north to the shoulders of U.S. and Canadian farmers and their widespread use of herbicides that kill milkweed.
In the past two centuries, monarchs have spread around the globe to the Pacific Islands, Australia and even parts of Western Europe. So they may never vanish from the world. But they might stop their seasonal movement, going the way of Great Plains bison. Humanity would lose an awe-inspiring annual event if the monarch no longer moves to dense colonies in Mexico, said Taylor, the Kansas expert.
"It's just jaw-dropping," he said. "The sensation of hearing and seeing tens of thousands of cascading butterflies at once is not like any other experience on Earth."
Taylor has been instrumental in the Monarch Waystation program, which encourages people to recolonize areas as small as their yards with milkweed to serve as stopping points for migrating butterflies. More than 7,500 "Waystations" now exist, including 400 in Texas alone, and boosters urge federal and state governments to let milkweed grow undisturbed along highways rather than mow it down.
Despite decades of scientific study, mystery still surrounds the monarch, including how it migrates to the same fir patch colonized by earlier generations.
Some experts worry about a variation of "the butterfly effect," the concept coined by Edward Norton Lorenz, an American meteorologist and pioneer of chaos theory, who suggested that the flapping of a butterfly's wings could trigger a hurricane on the other side of the globe weeks later.
That theory of interdependence now seems turned on its head. The question today is: What occurs when the monarch stops flapping its wings?
"If monarchs are in trouble, and they are a really robust species, you can practically be assured that there are a number of species like pollinators and birds that also are in trouble because they rely on the same habitats as monarchs," Altizer said. - Miami Herald.
July 30, 2013 - ALASKA - Alaska Department of Fish and Game sportfish biologist Doug Fleming estimates 1,100 kings died, most likely on Wednesday, July 17th. Fleming said he discovered the die-off after last week’s summertime sunshine. “So earlier in the week, started monitoring the water temperatures and seeing it was getting to the dangerous levels,” Fleming said. “And so, getting through til Wednesday which appeared to be the hottest day, then on Thursday I was conducting an aerial survey just to get a grip on how many fish may have been killed by the warm water, not expecting to see a large die off but some and I was shocked to see the numbers of fish that we lost at time. So that was on Thursday afternoon after the weather had broke.” Fleming recorded water temperatures at Blind River rapids in the 80s that week. He suspects that some combination of hot water, low oxygen levels in the water and a large number of fish trapped in the fresh water of Blind Slough led to conditions that the kings could not survive.
The tides may have also played a role. Fleming said the die-off happened during smaller tides, when the cooler ocean water may not reach far enough upstream. “The tides were building. We were just getting a small amount of tide exchange. It appears if, if the fish had made it through Wednesday night, they probably would have survived. We had a change in the weather, cooling off. And the tides are growing they’re very large now. I’ve heard reports that these carcasses are starting to wash out into the Wrangell Narrows. But yeah there’s a lot of tide now. So the remaining fish, our hopes are the remaining fish will use the tides to get up to the hatchery.”
Fish and Game was forecasting 1,800 adult kings would this year. That 1,100 dead includes adults as well as one- and two-year-old Chinook, however, Fleming says it’s a sizeable portion of the expected return that died. An unknown number of kings survived the hot water and can be seen still finning around the deeper pools at the rapids and the slough. Biologists won’t know until later this summer how many kings avoided the hot water and will still return to the hatchery. Those kings normally start showing up at the hatchery in early to mid-August.
Crystal Lake has not met its goals for broodstock, the fish needed to produce future generations, for the past four years. The hatchery has been forced to rely on brood stock eggs from other operations in Southeast and that could be the case again this year. The eggs cannot be salvaged from the dead kings, while birds, bugs, and bears are making quick work of the carcasses.
The Chinook die-off is not unheard of, and this year’s is not even the largest at Blind Slough. In 1989, about 1,400 fish were found dead in the slough. The past three and a half decades have seen six years, including 2013, with fish die-offs topping 500 king salmon.
Fleming said the poor conditions have also occurred in other salmon streams. “There’s other cases where its happened with other species, whether its pink salmon or others, in some of the large numbers of fish that pile into a creek and then water conditions change and then fish can basically suffocate and have large die offs but Blind Slough just does, the way it is, it’s shallow and wide in the middle portion of the slough there’s not a lot of shaded deep narrow channels to keep the water temperatures cool. Anyway it’s a difficult place to get fish through.”
Fleming and others from Fish and Game on Friday recovered some of the fish heads to have them checked for coded wire tags. Those tags will give biologists the age of fish that made it back to the slough and help with predicting future run strength.
A few chum salmon and hatchery cohos normally also start to show up to the rapids at this time of year. The slough was closed to sport fishing for June and July because of the weak king run and to allow enough kings to return for broodstock. Fishing will re-open there August 1st. - KFSK.
July 27, 2013 - NORTH POLE - The pictures are dramatic — a camera at the North Pole Environmental Observatory,
sitting in the middle of what appears to be either a lake or open
ocean, at the height of the summer sea ice melt season. Set against the
backdrop of the precipitous decline in sea ice cover in recent decades due in large part to global warming, this would seem to be yet another alarming sign of Arctic climate change.
Image from one of the North Pole Environmental Observatory webcams, taken on Thursday, July 25.
Credit: NSF's North Pole Environmental Observatory.
These images have attracted media attention, such as this AtlanticWire post and this Daily Mail story, both of which portray the images as potential signs of an intensifying Arctic meltdown.
But before concluding that Arctic climate change has entered an even
more ominous phase, it’s important to examine the context behind these
images.
First, the cameras in question, which are attached to instruments that
scientists have deposited on the sea ice at the start of each spring
since 2002, may have “North Pole” in their name, but they are no longer
located at the North Pole. In fact, as this map below shows, they have
drifted well south of the North Pole, since they sit atop sea ice floes
that move along with ocean currents. Currently, the waterlogged camera
is near the prime meridian, at 85 degrees north latitude.
“It’s moved away from the North Pole region and it will eventually exit
Fram Strait,” said Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and
Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., in an interview. Fram Strait
lies between Greenland and Canada, and is one of the main routes for sea
ice to get flushed out of the Arctic Ocean.
A picture of a buoy anchored near a remote webcam at the North Pole shows a
meltwater lake surrounding the camera. (North Pole Environmental Observatory)
The second thing to keep in mind is that melting sea ice at or near the
North Pole is actually not a rare event. Observations from the webcams
dating back to 2002, and from satellite imagery and nuclear-powered
submarines that have explored the ice cover since the Cold War era
dating back several decades, show that sea ice around the North Pole has
formed melt ponds, and even areas of open water, several times in the
past.
The webcam depicting what seems like open water is most likely “just
sitting in a big melt pond” that has formed on top of the sea ice cover,
Serreze said. This melt pond started forming around July 10, and is
likely close to its peak depth and extent. The occurrence of a melt pond
at or near the North Pole is “just not that unusual,” Serreze said, and
is even less rare at a more southern location such as where the camera
is now.
“The whole Arctic sea ice cover does show melt during summer even at
the North Pole,” he said, speaking of a typical melt season.
Serreze said it’s usually possible to walk through these melt ponds
with hip boot waders on, as opposed to having to swim, since there is
ice underneath the meltwater.
Annotated map showing the location of the North Pole and the location of the buoys with the webcams.
Credit: NSF's North Pole Environmental Observatory.
James Overland, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
told Climate Central in an email that the melt pond does seem unusually
large compared to what is typically observed in a melt season, though.
“We have extensive melt ponds every year, but I do not remember such an
extensive lake in previous years. The lake is more a product of how the
ice was configured earlier in the year,” he said.
Arctic sea ice cover has been rapidly shrinking and thinning
since the start of satellite observations in 1979. Last year, sea ice
extent and volume plunged to a record low. When the melt season finally
ended in late September, the Arctic Ocean managed to hold onto less than
half of the average sea ice extent seen during the 1979-to-2000 period.
WATCH: 2013 North Pole Webcam Animation.
The past six years have had the six smallest sea ice extents since
1979, indicating that the ice has not recovered from the previous record
low in 2007. Researchers attribute this to the loss of thicker
multiyear ice, which has been replaced by thinner ice that forms in the
fall and melts in the spring and summer.
Serreze said the thinness of the ice cover has made it much more
susceptible to weather patterns that promote ice transport and melting.
So far this summer, sea ice extent has tracked above that of 2012, with a
slow rate of ice melt in June followed by much more rapid melting
during the first three weeks of July after weather patterns became more
favorable for melting, Serreze said.
“I would be extremely surprised if we were not” well below average come
September, Serreze said, but the prospect of setting another record low
“depends on the vagaries of the weather, and we just can’t predict
that.” - Climate Central.
March 14, 2013 - MEXICO -
Scientists who take the annual measure of Mexican forestland famously
occupied by migrating monarch butterflies said Wednesday that the
butterfly population is the smallest they have seen in two decades.
The likely cause is unseasonably warm weather recently in the United
States, as well as a dramatic loss of habitat in the U.S. Corn Belt, the
scientists said.
A scientist collects a monarch butterfly near Zitacuaro, Mexico.
(Marjorie Miller, Associated Press / February 15, 2013)
In a survey carried out in December and January, researchers found nine
monarch colonies wintering in central Mexico, occupying a total of 1.19
hectares, or 2.94 acres, a 59% decrease compared with the previous
year's study.
It was troubling news for the Mexican states of Michoacan and Mexico,
where the yearly arrival of the butterflies is a major tourist
attraction. Of even greater concern, experts say, is the potential
impact that a diminished butterfly population could have on
interconnected habitats and species across North America.
The results were released by the World Wildlife Fund, the Mexican
government and giant Mexican cellphone company Telcel, which has
supported butterfly habitat conservation.
The measurements do not mean that the Mexican
habitat is disappearing; rather, measuring the area that the butterflies
occupy is the best way to estimate their numbers. Precise figures are
hard to come by, but 1 hectare may contain as many as 50 million
butterflies.
The yearly figures can fluctuate greatly because of variations in the
weather. But Chip Taylor, director of the research group Monarch Watch
at the University of Kansas, said the numbers have generally been
trending downward.
Taylor said the decline is due in great part to the widespread use of
the herbicide glyphosate. In key U.S. states where the butterfly feeds
and breeds - Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, parts of
Ohio and the eastern Dakotas - farmers have planted more than 120
million acres of corn and soybeans genetically modified to resist the
herbicide, he said. That allows them to use glyphosate to kill milkweed,
the monarchs' essential food.
Taylor said the decrease in the monarch population is more than a
philosophical or aesthetic conundrum. The loss of pollinating creatures
like butterflies and bees - whose populations are also collapsing
because of habitat loss - can result in a loss of plant diversity
across the continent, he said.
"The fruits, nuts, seeds and foliage that everything else feeds on," he
said. "If we pull the monarchs out of the system, we're really pulling
the rug out from under a whole lot of other species."
The dramatic winter presence of tens of millions of hibernating monarchs
about two hours' drive northwest of Mexico City was little known
outside the region until 1975, when the monarchs were "discovered" by a
Canadian zoologist. The Mexican government created a biosphere to
protect the insects in 1986.
The butterflies make their way from the U.S. and Canada, usually
arriving in Mexico around the beginning of November, clustering by the
thousands in the boughs of fir trees. Although the same trip occurs
every year, no individual butterfly makes it twice, as the butterfly's
life span is too short. How the migration route lives on in the
butterflies' collective memory is an enduring scientific mystery.
In Mexico, the government and some nonprofit organizations have worked
to discourage illegal logging and encourage tourism that will not harm
the butterflies. In the United States, Monarch Watch encourages
gardeners to purchase $16 seed kits for growing milkweed and nectar
plants the butterflies need. The seeds have been planted in more than
6,000 areas certified by the group as monarch "waystations" since 2005.
Taylor said Monarch Watch is working on broader-scale solutions,
including a system of getting large numbers of milkweed plants to native
plant societies and other conservation groups around the U.S. - LA Times.
First they called it the year without a winter. Then springtime began
to feel more like summer for most of North America. March 2012 saw
thousands of daily temperature records fall in the contiguous United
States (often called the “lower 48”), and the entire month was the
warmest March in a temperature record that dates back to 1895.
The map above shows global temperature anomalies for March 2012, based on an ongoing analysis by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. It shows changes from the norm for each region, not absolute temperatures.
That is, the map depicts how much temperatures rose above or below the
average March temperatures for that area compared to the base period of
1951-1980. For the month, the eastern two-thirds of the United States, as well
as the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba, saw
temperatures in the GISS map approaching as much as 10 degrees Celisius
(18 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal (deepest reds on the map).
Temperatures were similarly extreme in the Arctic Ocean around Svalbard,
the Barents Sea, and the Kara Sea. Far eastern Siberia, Alaska, and
northwestern North America were significantly colder, while much of
Europe and western Russia were warmer than normal (following a much colder February).
According to an analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
the average March temperature was 10.6 degrees C (51.1 degrees F) for
the 48 contiguous states, which was 4.8 degrees C (8.6 degrees F) above
the 20th century average for March. “Of the more than 1,400 months that
have passed since the U.S. record began,” NOAA climatologists wrote,
“only one month (January 2006) has seen a larger departure from its
average temperature than March 2012.” East of the Rocky Mountains, 25 states had their warmest March on
record; 15 more states were in their top ten warmest. More than 15,000
temperature records were broken—evenly split between daytime highs and
nighttime highs—and there were 21 instances where nighttime low
temperatures were warmer than the former daytime records. You can view and download global temperature anomaly images (updated monthly) on NASA Earth Observations. To see the trends in global temperatures over the past 130 years, visit World of Change: Global Temperatures - Earth Observatory.
Last week we revealed the dozens of cities that had their warmest March on record. Now we have the official word from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that March 2012 was the warmest March on record in the contiguous United States. In
addition, the January through March period of 2012 was the warmest
first quarter of the year on record. Records date back to 1895 in both
cases.
1910 was the year of the previous record warmest March.
NOAA also released information stating that the early March tornado outbreak in the Ohio Valley and Southeast was the first billion-dollar weather disaster of 2012.
1910 was the year of the previous record warmest March. William Howard
Taft was President of the United States that year. Since then, seventeen
other Presidents have occupied the Oval Office.
March 2012 beat the 1910 record by a half degree with an average
temperature of 51.1 degrees, which is 8.6 degrees above the 20th century
average.
The graphic above shows the average temperatures in the Lower 48 United
States for each March from the 1895 to 2012. Notice the spike in 1910
and now the new spike in 2012 that is above the previous 1910 record. The number of states east of the Rockies that recorded their warmest
March on record was 25. An additional 15 states had a top ten warmest March.
The image above shows the rankings for each state in March 2012. A
number 118 denotes that the state had its warmest March on record. A
ranking of 117 means the state had its second warmest March. States that had a record warm March: OK, KS, NE, SD, MN, IA, MO, AR, WI, IL, MS, TN, GA, KY, IN, MI, OH, WV, VA, PA, NJ, NY, CT, RI, VT
States that recorded their second warmest March: AL, SC, NC, DE, MA, NH, ND States that recorded their third warmest March: CO, WY, MT, MD, LA
The number of warm temperature records set in March 2012 was 15,292. This is a
combination of 7,775 daytime records and 7,517 nighttime records.
Hundreds of locations set all-time March records. There were 21
instances of nighttime temperatures being as warm or warmer than the
existing record high temperature for the date. The map of red dots above
shows where daily record highs were broken or tied in March 2012.- The Weather Channel.
"Everybody has this uneasy feeling. This is weird. This is not good," said Jerry Meehl, a climate scientist...
It's been so warm in the United States this year, especially in March, that national records weren't just broken, they were deep-fried. Temperatures in the lower 48 states were 8.6 degrees above normal for March and 6 degrees higher than average for the first three months of the year, according to calculations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That far exceeds the old records.
The magnitude of how unusual the year has been in the U.S. has alarmed some meteorologists who have warned about global warming. One climate scientist said it's the weather equivalent of a baseball player on steroids, with old records obliterated. "Everybody has this uneasy feeling. This is weird. This is not good," said Jerry Meehl, a climate scientist who specializes in extreme weather at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "It's a guilty pleasure. You're out enjoying this nice March weather, but you know it's not a good thing." It's not just March. "It's been ongoing for several months," said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Ashville, N.C. Meteorologists say an unusual confluence of several weather patterns, including La Nina, was the direct cause of the warm start to 2012. While individual events can't be blamed on global warming, Couch said this is like the extremes that are supposed to get more frequent because of manmade climate change from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. It's important to note that this unusual winter heat is mostly a North America phenomenon. Much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere has been cold, said NOAA meteorologist Martin Hoerling. The first quarter of 2012 broke the January-March record by 1.4 degrees. Usually records are broken by just one- or two-tenths of a degree. U.S. temperature records date to 1895. The atypical heat goes back even further. The U.S. winter of 2010-2011 was slightly cooler than normal and one of the snowiest in recent years, but after that things started heating up.
The summer of 2011 was the second warmest summer on record. The winter that just ended, which in some places was called the year without winter, was the fourth warmest on record. Since last April, it's been the hottest 12-month stretch on record, Crouch said. But the month where the warmth turned especially weird was March. Normally, March averages 42.5 degrees across the country. This year, the average was 51.1, which is closer to the average for April. Only one other time -- in January 2006 -- was the country as a whole that much hotter than normal for an entire month. The "icebox of America," International Falls, Minn., saw temperatures in the 70s for five days in March, and there were only three days of below zero temperatures all month. In March, at least 7,775 weather stations across the nation broke daily high temperature records and another 7,517 broke records for night-time heat. Combined, that's more high temperature records broken in one month than ever before, Crouch said. "When you look at what's happened in March this year, it's beyond unbelievable," said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver. NOAA climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi compared the increase in weather extremes to baseball players on steroids: You can't say an individual homer is because of steroids, but they are hit more often and the long-held records for home runs fall. They seem to be falling far more often because of global warming, said NASA top climate scientist James Hansen. In a paper he submitted to the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and posted on a physics research archive, Hansen shows that heat extremes aren't just increasing but happening far more often than scientists thought. What used to be a 1-in-400 hot temperature record is now a 1 in 10 occurrence, essentially 40 times more likely, said Hansen. The warmth in March is an ideal illustration of this, said Hansen, who also has become an activist in fighting fossil fuels. Weaver, who reviewed the Hansen paper and called it "one of the most stunning examples of evidence of global warming." - FOX News.
For tens of millions of Americans, last month was the warmest March in their lifetimes. Meteorologists used the terms "staggering," "astonishing" and "incredible" to describe the heat across the eastern two-thirds of the nation that set thousands of temperature records for March in cities and towns from the Dakotas to Maine to Florida.
"It's almost like science fiction," weather historian Christopher Burt of the private forecasting company Weather Underground reported last month. Several large cities - including Atlanta, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Nashville, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Tampa and Washington - had their warmest March since records started being kept. It was nearly a record warm March for New York City, Philadelphia and Denver, too. But temperature marks fell just short, and March will be recorded as a second-place finish, the Weather Channel reported. Although nationwide figures won't be available for a few days, it's likely that March 2012 will go down as the warmest March on record in the USA. "Across the nation, over 7,500 daily record high temperatures were set in March 2012," Weather Channel meteorologist Chris Dolce reported. In one week, from March 12-18, 3,125 daily record highs were set, which Weather Channel meteorologist Guy Walton said "is the most I have seen for a one-week period since tabulations began" in January 2000. The warm month came on the heels of the fourth-warmest winter on record across the lower 48 states.
According to meteorologist Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground, the unusual warmth was caused by a loop in the jet stream that created a large upper-level ridge of high pressure. That ridge stuck over the Eastern USA - a phenomenon known as a "blocking pattern." The bizarre warm spell has spilled into early April: Sunday in Plains states, temperatures soared into the 80s as far north as South Dakota. The heat will continue Monday in parts of the Midwest , where a record high of 91 degrees is forecast for St. Louis by the Weather Channel. The latest forecast from the Climate Prediction Center shows continued warmth expected over much of the central USA for the next week to 10 days. The heat confused plants and insects in March, leading to an unusually early blooming of the cherry trees in Washington. Apple and peach trees are already blooming in the Midwest. "The last year fruit trees bloomed this early in the Midwest was in 2007, which resulted in a late freeze on Easter weekend, an event that is now leaving orchard owners nervous that a similar freeze could happen again this year," the Midwestern Regional Climate Center reported. The only part of the nation that experienced a cooler-than-average month was the West Coast. Seattle residents had a particularly dismal month: Chilly temperatures seldom rose out of the dreary 40s and 50s. The city also had 24 of 31 days with measurable rain. - USA Today.
High temperatures last month broke the record for the warmest March in Oklahoma City since 1910, according to the National Weather Service.
The average temperature in March was 60.8
degrees. The previous record for March temperatures in the city was
60.5 degrees in 1910, according to temperature records that date back to
1891. Meteorologists said the average daily high temperature for
the month was 71.8 degrees and the average daily low temperature was
49.8 degrees. On the first day of April, forecasters said
temperatures will continue to rise in Oklahoma City with a high near 90
degrees and south-southwest wind between 18 and 20 mph with gusts as
high as 28 mph.
Skies will be mostly sunny Sunday and
mostly clear throughout the night with a low around 63 and south wind
with gusts as high as 25 mph. Forecasters said the southwest winds and unusually warm temperatures will quickly lower the relative humidity in western Oklahoma and western north Texas. Winds throughout Oklahoma will be breezy with gusts about 30 mph at times. A
Red Flag warning is also in effect for far western counties from noon
to 9 p.m. Sunday. Temperatures will reach from 90 to 100 degrees and
humidity levels will be between 14 to 20 percent. - NewsOK.
This month will be the warmest March on record both in Chicago and
statewide by the time it comes to a close at midnight Saturday,
shattering temperature records that stood for decades, weather experts
said Friday.
The average daily temperature in Illinois through Thursday was 54.7
degrees, more than three degrees higher than the previous statewide
record of 51.6 degrees set in 1946, said Jim Angel, the state's
climatologist. In Chicago, the average daily
temperature through Thursday was 54 degrees, topping the old mark of
48.6 degrees set in 1945.
Eight days reached at least 80 degrees in Chicago this month, according
to the National Weather Service. Before this year, the city had only
recorded 10 days in March since the early 1870s when temperatures
reached 80 degrees, according to the weather service.
"To have as many (80-degree days) as we did is just unbelievable and
historic and unprecedented," said Richard Castro, a weather service
meteorologist. "Summer in March is basically what we had." Despite this month's record-breaking temperatures, there's no guarantee
that this summer will be a scorcher, Angel and Castro said. Data for the summers that followed the previous 10 warmest months of
March in Illinois show that temperatures during those summers were about
normal, Angel said.
And though April is expected to be slightly warmer than usual, it
probably will be more in line with the fickle weather that is typical of
spring in northern Illinois, Castro said.
"It would be hard to have something as extreme as March," he said. "I'd
say the odds favor above normal (temperatures), but not as far above
normal."
- Chicago Tribune.
Chicago has set nine record highs in a row with temperatures climbing above-normal for July 4th on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The high soared to 85 degrees on Tuesday, March 20, 2012, and 87
degrees on Wednesday, March 21, 2012, shattering previous records for
these dates. The normal high for this time of year in Chicago is 48
degrees, while the normal high on July 4th is 84 degrees. The high of 87 degrees set on Wednesday ties for the second highest
temperature ever recorded in Chicago during the month of March. The
all-time record for March still stands as 88 degrees on March 29, 1986. On Thursday, March 22, 2012, the ninth record high in row was set in
Chicago as the high rose to 83 degrees during the afternoon. High temperatures have been more than 15 degrees above normal in
Chicago for 12 straight days, since March 10, 2012. The average
temperature so far this month is 18 degrees above normal. "Until this year, Chicago had only 10 days reaching 80 in March,"
said AccuWeather.com Chief Forecaster Elliot Abrams. The total number of
times the high reached 80 or higher for March 2012 is now eight.
What is Causing the Unusual Summerlike Warmth? The jet stream has been located far to the north across central and eastern Canada, allowing mild air to surge into the eastern two thirds of the nation. A large dome of high pressure dominating over the western Atlantic off the East Coast has been acting as a pump of warm air. "At least two-thirds of the nation could wind up with above-normal
temperatures [this spring]," Paul Pastelok, expert long-range
meteorologist and leader of the AccuWeather.com Long-Range Forecasting
Team, said late in February. He forecast that there could be the most widespread warmth this spring since 2004. - AccuWeather.
This has been a week of incredibly warm weather across much of the
country. Over 1,500 record high temperatures have been broken or tied
the past seven days, and we're not done breaking records yet! Here's a
quick roundup of the action so far:
Monday - According to the National Climatic Data
Center (NCDC), 138 daily high temperature records were tied or broken
primarily in the Northeast and Midwest. This includes records set in New York City (71), Boston, Mass. (71) and Albany, N.Y. (69) that were more than 100 years old! Tuesday - 218 daily high temperature records tied or broken in the Central and Northeast U.S, according to NCDC. Included were Concord, N.H. (71), Omaha, Neb. (81), Minneapolis, Minn. (67) and Sioux Falls, S.D. (79).
Wednesday - 457 daily high temperature records tied or broken, including St. Louis, Mo. (86), Chicago (81), Milwaukee, Wis. (78) and Paducah, Ky. (82), just to name a few. Minneapolis, Minn. (73) set a new record high on Wednesday for the fourth time in five days!
Stunningly, Traverse City, Mich. shattered their earliest 80-degree
reading on record, by 13 days; the old record was March 27, 1945.
Thursday - A whopping 593 locations equaled or
exceeded their record highs across the Rockies, Plains, Midwest,
Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Chicago hit 81, the first instance of back-to-back 80s there in March on record. Madison, Wisc. tied its all-time March record of 82, breaking the March 15 record by 13 degrees. Record highs also fell in Atlanta and Norfolk, Va. Friday - Chicago
hit 82, the first instance of three straight days in the 80s there in
March on record. Not to mention, it's the earliest 82-degree reading on
record, previously set on Mar. 27, 1945! Bismarck, N.D.
set a new March all-time record high (82). The previous
earliest-in-season occurrence of 82 degrees there was April 2, 1921.
Their average high this time of year is around 40 degrees! It was also the warmest day so early in the season in Minneapolis, Minn. (79). You'd have to go back to Mar. 23, 1910 to find a day as warm so early in the season in the Twin Cities! Ft. Wayne, Ind. (78) had its third-straight record high, and the first time it had three straight days with at least a high of 78 degrees since Mar. 27-29, 1910! - The Weather Channel.
It feels like May in March, and that means plenty of temperature records
are being broken this week, including 138 sites across the Midwest and
Northeast on Tuesday. Dozens more areas were expected to set records on
Wednesday, when temperatures in some places could be 35 degrees above
normal.
Records set Tuesday included 85 degrees Fahrenheit in Russell, Kan., 5
degrees warmer than its previous record in 1997 for a March 13, the National Climatic Data Center reported. St. Louis, Mo., also set a new daily high at 83 degrees, 3 degrees more than in 2007 and the second straight day with a record. Even Burlington, Vt., got a piece of the action, posting 67 degrees -- 5 degrees higher than its previous record back in 1946. As for Wednesday, "readings may be as much as 35 degrees above normal," the National Weather Service said in an advisory. The service said the warm spell should last into the weekend, while weather.com expected at least 60 cities and towns to post new records on Wednesday. "It's
almost like we skipped winter and now we're going to skip spring too,"
said Gino Izzi, a senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service's
Chicago office. Izzi said the weather pattern is a random but
normal fluctuation. A jet stream moving north to south on the West Coast
is pushing an opposite, seesaw effect in the rest of the nation.
Atmospheric patterns, including the Pacific phenomenon known as La Nina,
have kept cold air bottled up over Canada and contributed to the warmer
winter in snow-accustomed parts of the continental U.S.
Tuesday's
warm weather raised some concerns, including upping the risk of
wildfires. The unusually warm, dry and windy conditions prompted six
North Dakota counties to declare fire emergencies and institute burn
bans. In Minnesota, golfers greeted the sunshine at the Eagle
Valley Golf Course in suburban St. Paul as it opened Tuesday — weeks
earlier than last year. "We're hoping this is a sign of good things to come," head golf pro Dan Moris said. In Chicago, the ice rink was empty at iconic Millennium Park. Nearby,
new city residents Katie and Chris Anderson said they were surprised by
the weather because of Chicago's legendary cold winters. "I was really
nervous about moving here," Katie Anderson said. "We expected the worst," her husband added. In
downtown Washington, D.C., most of the benches at a local park were
filled with people enjoying the weather Tuesday. Taylor Jantz-Sell, a
government employee, planned to do some reading. "This is my
favorite time of year, watching the blossoms come out," she said, adding
that she had seen daffodils and crocuses, and ran to work Tuesday
morning because of the weather. "It's a sign of good things to come," she said. - MSNBC.
WATCH: Spring Fever, USA.
Read more HERE, as Jeff Masters of Weather Underground examines the exceptional weather, seen so early in the year in the United States.
Weird weather kept vexing large swathes of the United States over the last week, with unseasonably warm and dry conditions melting northern snows and spreading drought through the southwest, even as heavy rains soaked parched pastures in Texas and Oklahoma, according to climate experts.
Unseasonably warm temperatures were noted in Kansas and across many areas of the central Plains, with Kansas recording temperatures well above 60 degrees Fahrenheit this week. For January, the state-wide average temperature in Kansas was 35.2 degrees Fahrenheit, 7.9 degrees warmer than the 1981-2010 average, or 6.2 degrees warmer than the 1895-2011 average, making January the 12th warmest January since 1895, according to state climatologist Mary Knapp.
Above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation over the past 60-90 days has made drought more intense in some areas of southeastern New Mexico and western Texas, according to the Drought Monitor weekly climatology report issued on Thursday by a consortium of U.S. climate experts. Locally heavy rains across part of northern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas helped ease drought conditions slightly.
But in the week through January 31, Texas statewide saw exceptional drought - the highest level - climb to 27.36 percent of the state from 25.27 percent, according to the Drought Monitor. Texas is trying to emerge from a year that saw records shattered for both high heat and lack of moisture. The one-year period between November 1, 2010, and October 31, 2011, was the driest in the state's history, and three-month period of June to August in Texas was the hottest ever reported by any state in U.S. history, according to state and federal climate experts.
Moderate drought was reported for 57.33 percent of California, up from 41.23 percent the previous week, while abnormally dry conditions spread to 88.91 percent of the state, up from 80.88 percent, the Drought Monitor said. Nevada had 81.16 percent of the state rated in moderate drought, up from 64.59 the prior week. And New Mexico saw exceptional and extreme drought levels rise to 24.74 percent of the state from 23.37 percent. - Reuters.
Meanwhile, tropical cyclones will cause $109 billion in damages by the end of the century, according to Yale and MIT researchers, because of economic growth as well as climate change.
Global tropical damage is expected to double to $56 billion per year, with climate change adding another $53 billion of damages - equal to 0.01 percent of GDP in 2100. The US and China will be hardest hit, incurring $25 billion and $15 billion of the additional damages from climate change - a full three-quarters of global damages. Small islands, especially in the Caribbean, will also be hit hard. "The biggest storms cause most of the damage. With the present climate, almost 93 percent of tropical cyclone damage is caused by only 10 percent of the storms," says Robert Mendelsohn, lead economist on the project.
"Warming will increase the frequency of these high-intensity storms at least in the North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocean basins, causing most of the increase in damage." The authors based their estimates on a future global population of nine billion and an annual increase of approximately three percent in gross world product until 2100. "More people making a lot more income will put more capital in harm's way," says Mendelsohn. Tropical cyclones today cause $26 billion in global damages, which is four percent of gross world product. North America and East Asia account for 88 percent of these damages, thanks to powerful storms and well-developed coastlines.
The future economic damage from tropical cyclones will be less than $1 billion a year in Europe and South America because there are few storms there, and the damage in Africa will be low because, Mendelsohn said, there is "relatively little in harm's way." Damages in Asia and Central America are expected to grow rapidly, in line with high economic growth. The Caribbean-Central America region will have the highest damage per unit of gross domestic product, at 37 percent. "When you calculate damages as a fraction of GDP, island nations are hit disproportionately hard," says Mendelsohn. - TG Daily.
Ski resorts in Europe are continuing to struggle with a lack of snow - which has seen the cancellation of a series of World Cup alpine races.
The French resort of Val d'Isere was forced to abandon the event, due to take place on December 10 and 11, because of the balmy autumn which has this year beleaguered the continent. Its slopes, seen here in these staggeringly barren photographs, have been badly affected by the warmest and driest autumn in the Alps for 147 years. The hotter than usual weather is also posing problems across the rest of the continent, with a number of tourist destinations having had to postpone opening. St Anton, in Austria, will not open for at least another week, and Skiwelt, also in Austria, will not be taking skiers until December 15.
In other areas the situation is so bad that people who have not yet booked their trips are being advised to only consider resorts with high-altitude ski areas. This is because springlike temperatures mean the snow line for many resorts is far higher than usual. Scotland, Bulgaria and Germany have yet to open their main resorts. But it is not all bad news for European skiers. Scandinavia has reported up to 55cm of snow in the past week, Zermatt in Switzerland is fully open, and Solden saw 24cm of fresh snow yesterday. Al Morgan, information manager from the Ski Club of Great Britain said skiers should look to glacier resorts to be guaranteed snow but there are some non-glacial locations across Europe where you can still ski. He said: 'There is good news for European ski resorts as snow is forecast for this weekend and next week. 'The heaviest snowfall is expected to fall at the western European resorts, but resorts in the east should receive fresh snow too.
Val D'Isere is usually covered in snow during the ski season.
'Around 40cm of new snow could fall over the next nine days in parts of France and Switzerland. The fresh snow should dramatically improve the overall snow cover across the Alps. 'Even without the fresh snow, many European resorts are hoping to open for the winter season this coming weekend thanks to the great efforts of grooming and snow making teams. 'It has been snowing in Scotland this week too and if the snowfall continues, as it is forecast to, then the Scottish resorts should be able to open in the not too distant future.' The Met Office said that a cold front was expected over mainland Europe by the end of this week, starting tomorrow. Its report said: 'A glorious week of bright sunshine and clear skies is expected over the majority of our featured European resorts.
'However, on Friday 2nd December a drop in temperature is expected, snow is therefore forecast to fall, although this may only be across higher areas up.' But it warned that: 'At lower altitudes this could fall as rain.' The snow is expected to fall and settle at heights above 1,500m. Over in America, where the World Cup races will now take place at Beaver Creek resort in Colorado, there has been no such problem. The start of the North American ski season has seen a much better 1.2m fall of snow on West Coast runs and up to 60cm of new powder on the East Coast. - Daily Mail.
“Feels like mid-April” said a post on the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang site. “Amazing weather!” exclaimed another.
It was unusually warm in the Washington area Sunday, warm enough to set a record at one of the area’s airports and warmer than it might get for the rest of the year.
Temperatures at all three of the area’s airports reached into the 70s, and at Dulles International Airport, the maximum of 70 was a record. The old record at Dulles was 68, set in 1976. At Reagan National Airport, where Washington’s official readings are made, it was even warmer, 72 degrees. That made for an enjoyable afternoon for many, but it fell three degrees short of the record of 75, set 115 years ago. “Feels like mid-April” said a post on the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang site. “Amazing weather!” exclaimed another.
Travelers returning to the area after the Thanksgiving weekend found it much warmer than in Chicago, where Sunday’s high was 46, or Cleveland, where the high was 59, or New York, where the Central Park high was 63. It was just a little cooler in Washington than Atlanta’s 73, or at Raleigh-Durham airport in North Carolina, where 75 was measured. According to a National Weather Service analysis of Washington weather data, 2011 has about a 50-50 chance of ending without another day quite so warm or atmospherically amazing as Sunday.
An examination of Washington records going back to 1872 shows that in all the years since then, temperatures from Nov. 28 to Dec. 31 have reached 70 only 70 times, the weather service said. That means, the service said, that a 70-degree day from now to year’s end occurs, on average, about once every two years, which suggests that residents and visitors who rejoiced in Sunday’s balmy sunshine and shirt-sleeve conditions may not see anything quite like it again in the last 34 days of this year. In a Sunday forecast, The Post’s weather gang anticipated that the highs Monday would reach the 60s. The weather service also called for 60s. But it said that more sunshine would make possible another 70-degree day. Sunday was Washington’s second-warmest day this month at National, one degree short of the high of 73 reached Nov. 14. - Washington Post.
