Friday, March 21, 2014

The 2013-2014 Winter Was the 34th Coldest on Record in U.S., NASA Says

Perhaps the most iconic image of the U.S. winter of 2013 - 2014: Traffic gridlock in Atlanta on Tuesday afternoon, January 28, 2014 after Winter Storm Leon brought 2.6" of snow, shutting down the city. (Credit: @beercontrol/twitter) Click to enlarge.
Although many residents of eastern North America may feel like they’ve just suffered through a winter of record cold, the fact is that the winter of 2013-2014 was only the 34th coldest in 119 years of record keeping in the U.S.

This map shows land surface temperature anomalies for North America for December 1, 2013, to February 28, 2014 — the period known to scientists as meteorological winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Based NASA satellite data, the map depicts temperatures for December 2013 to February 2014 compared to the 2000–2013 average for those months. Areas with warmer than average temperatures are shown in red; near-normal temperatures are white; and areas that were cooler than normal are blue. (Map credit: NASA Earth Observatory) Click to enlarge.
As this map from the U.S. National Climatic Data Center shows, temperatures in the eastern and southern U.S. from Dec. 1, 2013, to Feb. 28th, 2014, were as much as 8 degrees C (14 F) colder than the 2000 to 2013 average for those months. But the western U.S. and Alaska saw unusually warm weather, with California experiencing its hottest winter on record. Overall, temperatures this past winter in the U.S. were about 1 degree F above average. Meanwhile, temperatures in Russia, Asia, and much of Europe were well above average this past winter, and land temperatures globally for December, January, and February were the 10th warmest on record.

The 2013-2014 Winter Was the 34th Coldest on Record in U.S., NASA Says

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