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Warmest 12-Month Period Recorded In US
First time accepted submitter seanzig writes "Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground provides a good overview of the State of the Climate Report from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). May 2011 through Apr. 2012 broke the previous record (Nov. 1999 — Oct. 2000). A number of other interesting records (e.g., warmest March on record) and stats emerged. It just presents the data and does not surmise anything about the causes or what should be done about it."
More snow does not mean cooler temps. More snow means more moisture in the air.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
...is trending cooler.
Enough cooler, apparently, to more than balance out the relatively local heat we've seen in the US, which is caused by a regional weather situation that's also apparently starting to change.
2011 was the ninth warmest year on record despite the cooling influences of La Nina. What period are you taking your trend off? The last three-four years?
Sure, and it is a valid point when one has a few weeks of cold or even a few months of cold. And by the same token, a year like this one by itself isn't that useful data. It is when data like this year is part of a larger pattern that it becomes a problem. In this context one has a very hot year by a variety of different metrics and that's on top of a gradual increase in average temperature over the last twenty years. Weather and climate are different, but lots of weather change over the long-term is eventually a sign of climate change.
Do you have data to back this claim up? It is true that Europe had a cold snap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_European_cold_wave where some countries, including France and Italy reported record low temperatures. But even given that, global temperature average on both land and air for February http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/2/were slightly above average and were very high for March http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/3 Since February was the height of the cold snap in Europe, and the global temperatures were still high, I'm not sure where you are getting your estimate.
So I am wrong, care to educate me, o' weather scientist. Are you saying moisture density in the air is not increased by heat? And why would it have to be colder for more snow. I find that snow is more likely to fall closer to the freezing point, in fact the temperature generally rises when it snows.
Basically what I am saying is it can get too cold to snow (well not really but the probability the conditions for snow are vastly reduced), below 0F you really don't get much precipitation. Snow requires a few things to occur before you see those white flakes. 1 Moisture saturation, the more moisture in the air means the higher probability of snow, 2. Temperature, must allow the ice crystals to stay frozen on their way down, 3 a temperature difference between the lower atmosphere and the area where snow develops. On really cold days there is not enough heat to drive the saturated air to the very cold layers of the atmosphere where snow forms
Oh wait you said I was wrong? Hmm guess not.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Except snow doesn't form down here, it forms high up in the atmosphere, to get that water up there you have to have heat to drive the saturated air up. Notice it snows far heavier on the warmer winter days. Once the temp drops well below freezing the chances of snow are greatly reduced.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
9th warmest. not the warmest. So warmest period for a small region like the continental US not really significant. also, La Nina moves heat around, doesn't make it vanish.