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Hard as it may be to believe if you live in the Northeast or upper Midwest, last January was not the warmest on record across the lower 48 states, federal recordkeepers announced Tuesday.
It was warm -- but only the fourth warmest since records began in 1895 and nowhere near the record set in 2006, the National Climatic Data Center reported.
The average temperature last month was 36.3 degrees Fahrenheit -- 5.5 degrees above the 1901-2000 average. The record is 39.7 degrees, followed by 37.2 in 1990 and 1953.
As for snow cover, last month was the third smallest for a January in 40 years that those records have been kept.
Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at the center, told msnbc.com that he wasn't surprised last month didn't set a warmth record given that there were "a couple of cold outbreaks" during that time.
But a few data points did jump out at him: Minnesota saw a record warm December-January that was 10.1 degrees above average.
Moreover, no state was cooler than average and only two (Florida and Washington) were near average.
Nine others -- Arizona, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming -- saw January temps among their 10 warmest.
"Many locations across the Northern Plains exceeded all-time warm January maximum temperatures," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a statement, including Minot, N.D., which got to 61 degrees on Jan. 5 -- topping its previous record of 59 set on Jan. 28, 1906. The center is part of NOAA.
Readers weigh in on the spring winter
For the Northeast, it was only the 16th warmest January on record, but the 10th consecutive month that the region averaged warmer than normal.
So is the warmth tied to climate change? Scientists can't make that connection on such a short timescale, Crouch said. "We are seeing a long-term trend of warming winters," he added, "but there are a lot of factors in any given month."
And while it was warm across the continental U.S., Alaskans can tell you they've had it bitterly cold.
The federal recordkeepers made note of that, reporting several towns had their coldest average January temperatures on record: Bethel (-17.3 degrees F); Bettles (-35.6 degrees F); McGrath (-28.5 degrees F); and Nome (-16.6 degrees F).
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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well i cannot wait for you and your friends to start lieing about your schools and degrees , I waited 11 minutes . just to see if any one had the nerve to come and pretend . Good night wanna be's
It's called La Nina. Those ocean currents play a big part in the scheme of things as far as the climate goes. El Nino with have different effects on the climate as will the period in between the two. Then you have the Mid Atlantic Oscillation, which plays its own role in things. Even things as seemingly mundane as volcanic ash, can cause below average temps. That apparently hasn't been much of an issue in the lower 48 as yet. As long as the sun rises, it's all good.
I guess when it's 146 in New York during the Summer with a blackout...it MAY get your attention in 2019. But before then you'll see a gradual increase in temp, continued polar melting and upper atmosphere instability.
Peter, Did you think about how much colder it is in the northern hemisphere this year? More cold = more ice in turn means the northern areas are replacing what has been lost in the so called global warming. Isn't Mother Nature in control of this planet? BTW, according to records we are due for a cool down.
Don't confuse "Weather" with "Climate". Yes it's cold in Europe but not in Greenland where it's supposed to be. Remember as we trap more sunlight down here with carbon (science), the upper atmosphere gets less reflected warming and thus is colder. This creates greater instability as two more extreme layers interact in more violent ways (ie weird weather). Yes Mother Nature will always win but you might not like the results when you mess with her.
Well all I know is I live in the cold north and this warm weather makes me so happy that I start my car an extra half hour earlier before leaving to go to work. The money I am saving on the heat bill more then pays for the extra gas I am using.
I live in Wis. Feb 2cnd and 4th 1996 -55 Ill take this any day!
Cold winter weather, snow in short supply this season
By RENEE SCHOOF - McClatchy Newspapers
By RENEE SCHOOF
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tool goes here Winter's been so mild in much of the United States this year that you can slip out some sunny afternoons to the golf course or bike path. Many snow shovels have stayed in storage. Heating bills have fallen.
Meanwhile, Europe's suffering a brutal winter.
But in the United States - in the East, Midwest, Texas, the Plains and parts of the West - the average mean temperature was 5 degrees or more above normal over the past 30 days. Only Washington state and parts of Oregon showed cooler-than-average temperatures then.
It remains to be seen, however, whether U.S. winter records will be broken.
"We'll have to wait until February is over," said Kathryn Vreeland, a climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center.
Mike Halpert, the deputy director of the government's Climate Prediction Center, said the U.S. had had a number of warm winters recently. But the last two were cold across much of the country, and that's fresh in everyone's mind, he said.
Part of the explanation for this year's mildness stems from the Arctic Oscillation - atmospheric pressure patterns in the Arctic and northern-middle latitudes.
The Arctic Oscillation has been in a warm or positive phase recently, meaning the polar jet stream is stronger than average and has shifted poleward, Halpert said. "Basically, that keeps cold air bottled up over the pole."
The last two winters were the opposite: A negative phase allowed cold air to drop down. That brought heavy snow to New York and New England last year, and the big snows in the mid-Atlantic in 2010.
Record keeping on the Arctic Oscillation began around 1950, Halpert said. In the 1950s, '60s and '70s, there often was a negative phase, bringing colder winters. In the 1980s, '90s and 2000s, many winters had a positive AO.
The Arctic Oscillation is part of the planet's natural cycle, Halpert said; it's too early to tell whether climate change is having an impact on it.
Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/02/08/3856698/cold-winter-weather-snow-in-short.html#storylink=cpy
its accepted that excess nitrogen, a natural gas has killed off over half the chessapeak bay, killing off the great barrier reefs, all b/c of farming run off.. of what equates to maybe .01 in comparison to existing levels.. its proven, its accepted.. its also accepted that we pollute land and water, thsu making drinking water dangerous.. but when it comes to polluting our atmosphere its some big scare tactic and conspiracy.. i just dont understand the logic of some people.. there is far too much evidence - mass extinction at an unprecedented rate, increased temperatures, all at the same time, we destroy more and more rainforests and emit more and more co2.. who cares if nature emits more then Man, its a mute point.. it doesn't matter b/c we have tilted the balance.. the atompshere is so fragile and so is live.. so it doesn' ttake much to change things.. just b/c earth will survive, doesn't mean we should destroy everythign in our paths.. and its not fair to all other living species b/c of our selfisheness and greed..
No one will be effected negatively if we change to greener more efficient fuels.. fossil fuels brought us thru the 20th century, its time other fuels are utilized as energy that will bring us thru the next centuries.. fossil fuels have reached their limits.. the first country to design or the first company to invent a new, reliable sustainable energy will rule the earth.. but being that so many people and energy companies are afraid, they are the ones who try and scare you.. otherwise there's nothing to be afraid of. Simple, change to better more efficient energies - ALL who rome this earth will benefit!! if a species that can live 200,000 years or longer has been fine, untouched, unscathed for millions ofyears.. lives hundreds of thousands of years and noww all of a sudden is dying off? its no longer a coincidence..
and yes folks temps are getting warmer.. not in the past 5 years but decade .after decade, on average its warmer and it doesn't take data to know this.. just step outside.. some places are colder, some warmer. but on average the world is warmer then it was 100 years ago.. tied in with all these species in decline is a statistical fact that something is going on wwith our climate and the coorelation of species effectedc by this..
there is no mass extinction at an unprecedented rate. Species are less likely to go extinct today than they were 100 years ago.
herbi - "not fair to all other living species"? I say let them speak for themselves!!
Chesty, how is it that we're not causing species to go extinct at a faster rate than 100 years ago? Maybe saying we're causing "mass extinctions" is a bit on the extreme side, but with how we're changing the environment to suite our desires, clear cutting forests, damming rivers, etc. is causing many species to go extinct.
Tom, just how are other species supposed to speak for themselves? WE are the ones changing the face of the planet to suite our needs, not them. They are only trying to survive in ever smaller areas since we've cut down, paved over, and populated a good majority of their habitat.
Ok, Alaksa is part of the Continental US, we are on the same continent. You mean contiguous!! I love that we don't ever make the map!! This was the coldest January on record, hit -53.
I have lived in Galena Alaska its cold!!!!!!!!!!
Bout the ONLY thing Washington and Florida will ever have in common......
Whose creation is the color code for the Map? The two warmest reds are virtually indistinguishable from one another. Anybody else have this problem? Lack of severe Winter caused mental lethargy......?
You notice how Global Warming Alarmists in the Liberal Media Cherry-pick the evidence?
I never saw a story about whether or not December was one of the warmest on record.
Or where November ranked.
Or where October ranked.
If a month isn't historically very warm, MSNBC won't say anything. When it is hot, they do a story on it to hype up the global warming agenda.
Why didn't we get a story on where December, November and October ranked in terms of hottest months, liberals at MSNBC? Did the evidence not fit the agenda?
Just go to the NOAA or NASA websites and you can get the official global average temperature for 2011 ... 0.51 deg C (nearly 1 deg F) above the 20th Century average, the warmest La Nina year on record. There is no attempt to hide any of this data. NOAA should also have the data by month for the U.S.
The problem really have here is a lack of mathematical abilities. You only have data slightly more than a hundred years. I am a engineer so you have to calculate flood dat all the time for 10 25 50 100 year intervals. I can have 2 100 year floods within say 3 years not great odds but it does happen. I can also have a 100 year flood not occuring in a 150 year period there is only roughly a 64% chance of getting a hundred year flood in a hundred years. We still do not have enough data in years yet to even know what a statistical high would be. You have close to 70% chance the temps from 1895 to present are even a hundred year high event if all conditions remained the same. You have to have several hundred years of data to really see a trend. Washington crossed the delware on foot it was froze over. You haven't been able to do it since. A mini ice age was occurring at that time. There are cycles in nature the bad problem is we don't have something like watermarks left on rocks to tell the exact flood level at certain years for temperatures. You can make rough guess but it still just a guess. Everybody looks at this year's winter being warm proves global warming a few years ago there were 100 inch snows in New York proved there was no global warming, neither of these case prove anything. You have a statistical probablitity that some years are going to be warm some are not. It really would take several hundreds of years to get trends right and prove anything. That is from a pure mathematical approach. You could have 5 record highs in a row out of a hundred years it still could be nothing at all the odds are extremely high not impossible. I am amazed at the claims these guys put out. Physics always have to have a six sigma to make sure that it is correct. All science is suppose to go by this a 1 in a million chance with a 100 years of data you only have a 3 sigma amount of data, so is this science? Not by the definition of what your strandards are suppose to be. You could have a steady upward trend in tempatures each year ( we don't) and it would be called in science terms a hint form the limited amount of data. I am not really sure why Gobal warming gets to buck accept math and science rules. The equations are not overly hard to work go look them up basic stats run the number see for yourself. A hundred year high might be 42 or 44 degrees we simple do not know there is not enough data yet to be sure we have a 100 year high event. No engineer would assume that he had a 100 year flood event in a 115 years the odds are good around 70% but are you willing to bet your life on 70%. What if we had that limited amount of data and built you a house in a flood zone on a 70% chance it would not wash out during a rain in one year. I can see the lawsuits now. So with this limited amount of data you are willing to say with absolute conviction either way and start calling each other names. I am amazed that anyone that even remotely calls his self a scientist would even claim this. If you noticed they made these models based on very limited data several years ago and we were already supposed to be way warmer than now. Why, to little data projecting to far in the future. Science requires a lot more data than this. If you claim otherwise you are not a scientist and you certainly do nt understand probablity. One thing probability teaches you pretty quick is there is no norm. no one has 1.6 kids, 2.2 cars, 1.3 houses,It is more common to see one extreme to the other. 8 kids and 0 and so on. I have had 3 major car wrecks lived thru them all not good odds of that. My brother has had 0 his wife 0 his 3 kids 0 with a 64% chance of having a major wreck in there live the odds are not good still it has happen. So when you look at records remember the odds are that there has to be record highs and record lows sometimes.
Actually 35 consecutive years of global temperatures above the 20th Century average (according to NOAA) is pretty good statistical evidence for climate change. But you miss a more important point ... if something is a high risk (in this case the potential future damage that could be done by rising sea levels, etc.), you shouldn't wait until it's 99.9% certain before taking action to avert the risk, otherwise you will likely be too late.
it's obummer's fault
Can someone please explain the map graphic used with this article?
I think it using a scale of 1 to 118 being the warmest.