The U.S. Climate of 2014: Remarkable Hot, Cold, Wet and Dry Extremes

How you experienced the climate of 2014 depended a great deal--by some measures, more than any year in U.S. history--on where in the nation you happened to be.  This was made abundantly clear in the full 2014 report on U.S. temperatures and precipitation, released Monday morning by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).  When looking at the entire contiguous 48 states, the annual rankings aren't especially striking: the year placed 34th warmest and 40th wettest out of 120 years of data. The overall warmth comes as no surprise, given that every year since 1996 has placed above the nation's long-term temperature average.

These unremarkable statistics obscure the real story of 2014:  the titanic contrast between a parched, scorched West (especially California, where the heat left all-time records in the dust), a very warm New England and Florida, and a much cooler area in between, with some months at or near all-time record lows in states stretching from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast. 

NCDC's state-by-state map of 2014 temperature rankings (see Figure below) tells the tale vividly.  California, Nevada, and Arizona all saw their hottest year on record, going back to 1895.  The year placed among the top-twenty warmest in most of the other western states, as well as in Maine.  At the same time, a corridor of seven central states--Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan--saw 2014 place among their top-ten coolest years.

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The recent uptick in extreme one-day precipitation totals across the nation is consistent with more than a decade of research showing that many parts of the world, including the United States, are seeing their heaviest bouts of rain and snow getting even heavier over time.  This conclusion was reinforced on a national and regional scale in the 2014 U.S. National Climate Assessment and on a city-by-city scale in a study by Brian Brettschneider highlighted by Weather Underground blogger Chris Burt last August. The result is also consistent with the basic concept that a warming planet will see an increase in hydrologic contrasts, as warmer temperatures allow for more water to evaporate from lakes, oceans, and plants--helping boost the output of rainstorms and snowstorms--while sucking more water from already-parched land, intensifying the effects of drought.

Read more at The U.S. Climate of 2014:  Remarkable Hot, Cold, Wet and Dry Extremes