Sunday, February 12, 2012

January 2012 the fourth warmest for the contiguous United States

NOAA: During January, warmer-than-average conditions enveloped most of the contiguous United States, with widespread below-average precipitation. The overall weather pattern for the month was reflected in the lack of snow for much of the Northern Plains, Midwest, and Northeast. This scenario was in stark contrast to Alaska where several towns had their coldest January on record.

...The average contiguous U.S. temperature in January was 36.3 degrees F, 5.5 degrees F above the 1901-2000 long-term average -- the fourth warmest January on record, and the warmest since 2006. Precipitation, averaged across the nation, was 1.85 inches. This was 0.37 inch below the long-term average, with variability between regions.

Warmer-than-average temperatures were widespread across the contiguous United States during January. Nine states – Arizona, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming – had January temperatures ranking among their ten warmest. Florida and Washington were the only states with temperatures near average, and no state was cooler than average.

Many locations across the Northern Plains exceeded all-time warm January maximum temperatures records during the month, including Minot, North Dakota, which reached 61 degrees F on January 5th. This surpassed the previous record of 59.0 degrees F for the city, set on January 28th, 1906.

In contrast to the contiguous United States being much warmer than average, several towns across Alaska had their coldest average January temperatures on record -- Nome (-16.6 degrees F), Bethel (-17.3 degrees F) McGrath (-28.5 degrees F), and Bettles (-35.6 degrees F)...

Temperature map from NOAA

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