U.S. experiences warmest 12-month period on record
The past twelve months were the warmest twelve months in U.S. history, said NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) on Tuesday, in their monthly "State of the Climate" report. Temperatures in the contiguous U.S. during May 2011 - April 2012 broke the previous record for warmest 12-month period, set November 1999 - October 2000, by 0.1°F. The past twelve months have featured America's 2nd warmest summer, 4th warmest winter, and warmest March on record. Twenty-two states were record warm for the 12-month period, and an additional nineteen states were top ten warm. NOAA said that the January - April 2012 period was also the warmest January - April period since record keeping began in 1895. The average temperature of 45.4°F during January - April 2012 was 5.4°F above the 20th century average for the period, and smashed the previous record set in 2006 by an unusually large margin--1.6°F.
Figure 1. The ten warmest 12-month periods in the contiguous U.S. since record keeping began in 1895. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.
Figure 2. The average temperature of 45.4°F during January - April 2012 was the warmest on record: 5.4°F above the 20th century average for the period, and was 1.6°F above the previous record set in 2006. January - April temperatures have been rising at about 1.9°F per century since 1895. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.
April 2012: 3rd warmest on record
April 2012 was the third warmest April in the contiguous U.S. since record keeping began in 1895. Ten states had a top-ten warmest April, and no states were cooler than average. But what's really remarkable about April was that eight states--Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia--had average April temperatures cooler than their March temperatures, even though their April temperatures were still above the long-term average for the month. These statistics show just how remarkably warm March 2012 was. Most extreme was Illinois, where April 2012 temperatures ranked in the top 20% for warmest Aprils, yet were cooler than March 2012 temperatures.
Figure 3. Temperature rankings for April 2012 in the Contiguous U.S. Ten states had a top-ten warmest April, and no states were cooler than average. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.
Figure 4. NOAA's U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI) for January - April shows that 2012 had the most extreme weather on record.
Most extreme January - April on record
NOAA's U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI), an index that tracks the highest 10 percent and lowest 10 percent of extremes in temperature, precipitation, and drought, was 42% during the January-April period, over twice the average value, and the greatest on record. Remarkably, 82% of the contiguous U.S. had maximum temperatures that were in the warmest 10% historically, and 68% had warm minimum temperatures in the top 10%, with records going back to 1910. The previous records were 56% (2000) and 57% (1992) for maximum and minimum temperatures, respectively. The percentage area of the U.S. experiencing top-10% drought conditions during January - April was 19%, which was the 17th greatest since 1910. Extremes in precipitation as computed by the CEI were near average for the January - April period.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Exactly. I have noticed the tropics love to show a blatant disregard for meteorologists as well.
Hey Nigel... Right now I don't see it happening... I don't like the fact that the Euro hasn't picked up on it and I don't like how the GFS, even though it consistently is showing development, is doing something different with the storm every time. I don't give it a very high chance at this point. Still something to watch though.
There are other reasons why the GFS runs were and still could be bogus. Almost every time the GFS shows a "ghost storm" in the western Caribbean, it is because of an over-zealous strengthening of an MJO pulse in phases 8 and 1. Here, the GFS still is making the coming MJO pulse too quick and too strong if we believe the more moderate European models which have been beating the tar out of the GFS for the last 3 weeks on the tropics.
I'm down by the old man known as Grothar, but I missed my yearly trip to SC last year, so I hope to make a trip up in the winter. I'll definitely let you know.
Evening all....
Where/when is this storm supposed to develop? Is this an E-Pac or an Atlantic storm the models keep talking about?
lived there 12 years...it was a blast
re move
Week of May 20 on the Atlantic side in the western Caribbean.
Isn't that the town which is South of Due West, South Carolina.
I have to agree with you on this one...Severe Weather coverage by Dr. Greg Forbes is excellent...Tropical Weather by Dr. Rick Knabb...not so much.
I miss Dr. Steve Lyons.
May 10, 2012 - 23:45 UTC
You got that right.....
LOL...I don't know how many times I've heard that phrase so far this year. Well...I ain't naming anything till its named...LOL
This.
Dr. Lyons' birthday was either yesterday or the day before. Told him happy birthday through Facebook and he wrote back. Wonderful person and a wonderful tropical forecaster.
I miss him too... I really, really liked watching his analysis... He was great.
Still, Dr. Knabb is far from a bad forecaster... He definitely tends to be slow to buy into potential storms, but he's not the worst person for the job.
Why is Dr. Rick Knabb discussing this now? I thought tropical updates on The Weather Channel don't start till June 1...
And don't forget to take out the garbage!
Anything to catch the attention of someone flipping through channels...
It was in response to this.
Lol... Didn't even notice the GFS showing Aletta just 3 days from now! It's pretty far out in the Pacific though.
Give that man a cigar!!!! on second thought...give me the cigar....give him a doughnut...
I still miss John Hope.
Yep. Not sure they get much better than him..
You probably miss Noah and the days you helped him build the ark.
It never aired on the Weather Channel, its a pre-recorded video exclusively for the web, so you are incorrect.
Thanks much MA
Hi Levi. Maybe the dominance of ECMWF ends if the upgrade that GFS will undergo on May 22nd is successful and improves it to the point that is turns into the #1 model displacing the EURO.
Link
They kicked him off too because of certain things in our arguments,
Dr Lyons was very good I wonder where he went
He is now the MIC at the NWS in San Angelo, TX.
Good evening NC. What's up?
Lol. Oh well. I don't keep up with the Al Roker network.
He works for the National Weather Service somewhere in Texas I believe.
I could see something spinning up out of that... The 12z and 18z GFS runs were basically identical with their placement and intensity of the system... Of course the 12z Euro didn't show it... That would've made the forecast too easy.
Yeah it did, I saw it on The Weather Channel earlier. I never check their website.
In San Angelo,Texas NWS office.
...Buuuuurn.
Water Temps are really warning up over the waters of the western and central atlantic !
While the new parallel GFS has seen significant improvements over the currently running version, ECMWF still has significantly higher skill scores at the 5-day forecast:
However, I do look forward to the improvements to the GFS's initialization scheme (not the actual model).
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