2006 Was the Warmest Year Ever

kpw10 writes "Dr. Jeff Masters from Wunderground has a great summary of this year's rather abnormal weather (his blog is the best source on the net for in-depth weather analysis). The post discusses some of the cyclical climate forces at work this year and compares this year's record temperatures to records from the past. There are some interesting differences, particularly in the extent of the northern hemisphere seeing record highs this year." From the article: "December's weather in the Northeast U.S. may have been a case of the weather dice coming up thirteen — weather not seen on the planet since before the Ice Age began, 118,000 years ago. The weather dice will start rolling an increasing number of thirteens in coming years, and an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summertime by 2040 is a very real possibility..." Here is the The National Climatic Data Center's report announcing the entry of 2006 into the record books.

Comments

Re:Almost all the ski slopes in Europe

[WindBourne]

No, the bulk of the snow is on the eastern side of the divide (i.e. denver). The snow is maybe a bit above average for this time of year (but the snow is nice). If you want lots of snow, try the northwest.

As to the airport closure, it was actually only closed for 36 hrs for the first storm only. On the second storm, airlines assumed a closure would happen and flights were manipulated. As it was, the airport never closed. The storm hit hard to the south east. Had the storm moved just 41 miles north, then most likely DIA would have been closed for 48 hours or more.

But in my 25 years of living in Colorado, this is the first time that I have seen this much snow on the ground at this time of year. It reminds me of xmas in south wisc (which actually had no snow).

Here in Maine...

[Civil_Disobedient]

This has been one of the weakest winters on record. Simultaneously, last Spring was one of the wettest on record. Don't know if there's any correlation between the two of those, but I do know that it's been in the 50s (F) for a few days this week, which is simply insane. We've had perhaps two miserly snowfalls (less than a couple of inches accumulated). The average temperature for December was up 10 degrees from the average.

From the National Weather Service:

The average temperature of 34.5 degrees tied 1996 as the second warmest December on record. The warmest December was 34.8 degrees in 2001. In contrast, the coldest December was in 1989 with an average temperature of 14.1 degrees. Normally December has as average of 27.6 degrees.
[...]
The average high temperature for the month was a record 43.3 degrees. The old record was 42.8 degrees in 1953. The coldest high temperature was 24.7 degrees in 1989 and the normal December average high temperature is 36.4 degrees.
[...]
The average low temperature for the month was 25.6 degrees, warm enough to be the 3rd warmest on record. The warmest average low temperature was 27.8 degrees in 1996 followed by 26.8 degrees in 2001. The coldest average low temperature was 3.4 degrees in 1989 and the normal December average low temperature is 18.7 degrees.
[...]
The temperature never got below zero degrees in December. In fact, the coldest reading was only 9 degrees and that didn't occur until the last day of the month.
[...]
The warmest temperature for the month was 61 degrees on the 1st. I'm going to have to move to Canada if I ever want to see a white Christmas again.