All-Time Warmth for February Stretches to New England

A February remarkable for its long stretches of mildness steamed onward Thursday, with more all-time records for the month continuing to tumble across wide stretches of the U.S.  The apex of the record-setting warmth expanded on Thursday from the Midwest.  A staggering number of daily record highs have been set in recent days, especially when juxtaposed against the sparse number of record lows this month.  As of Friday morning, NOAA’s U.S. Records site had compiled 4492 daily record highs for February 2017, against a mere 29 daily record lows, for a lopsided highs-to-lows ratio of 155-to-1.  With record highs expected to far outpace record lows through the end of the month, February has a very good chance of smashing the highest ratio in modern records:  44-to-1, from November 2016, as reported by longtime records tracker Guy Walton (@climateguyw) in his new Guy on Climate blog.  Brian Kahn (Climate Central) puts it this way:  “The U.S. is poised to set a record-setting record.” 

Another astounding tidbit:  the NOAA site shows 248 monthly record highs for February, but no monthly record lows at all.  This is the first time that Walton recalls seeing such a skewed ratio of monthly records.  It almost goes without saying that this onslaught of February records is entirely consistent with the warming of national and global climate being generated by human-produced greenhouse gases, as noted by Andrew Freedman 

Read more at All-Time Warmth for February Stretches to New England