Due to the extraordinary heat wave that sent temperatures soaring to summer-like levels across the eastern two-thirds of the country, March was officially the warmest such month in history for the Lower 48 states, the National Climatic Data Center NCDC announced Monday. The heat wave was unprecedented in its scope and magnitude for so early [...]
Signal: hot
Weathercasters “freaked” over weird, hot weather
Our intrepid reporter Mr. Mat Honan spent some time in Kentucky this past week, and he said the weather was incredibly, unseasonably hot. It was in the 80s in March. Not normal. What the heck? So we asked our friends at The Weather Channel: please explain? We were hoping they’d say something reasonable, like, about [...]
Northern Plains towns see all-time record warm January
The average contiguous U.S. temperature in January was 36.3 degrees F, 5.5 degrees F above the 1901-2000 long-term average — the fourth warmest January on record, and the warmest since 2006. Warmer-than-average temperatures were widespread across the contiguous United States during January. Nine states – Arizona, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, [...]
Texas has hottest June-August on record in the U.S.
Texas just finished the hottest June through August on record in the U.S., the National Weather Service said Thursday. Weather service meteorologist Victor Murphy told The Associated Press that Texas’ 86.8 average beat out Oklahoma’s 85.2 degrees in 1934. That Dust Bowl year is now third on the list for the three-month span, behind No. [...]
July 2011: The hottest month in Washington, D.C. history
Congratulations D.C.-area readers. You have just experienced — or tolerated, survived, and suffered — the hottest month in recorded history. We did it last July too, but this time we soared just over another degree on average to achieve an incredibly toasty 84.5F at Washington Reagan National Airport. That’s 4.7 degrees hotter than the new [...]
Records rains, unusual warmth driving “allergy storm”
There may be a dusting of truth to allergy sufferers’ complaints that this season is, well, a bigger headache than years past. Heavy snow and rain in some parts of the country have nourished a profusion of tree pollen, while a sudden shift to warm, sunny weather has made its release more robust. Add in [...]
India’s mango crop burned up in extreme heat wave linked to climate change
Alphonso, the king of mangoes, has fallen victim to climate change. The state government’s preliminary estimate is that nearly 80% of the mango crop has been destroyed, said agriculture minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil. “The trees flowered far in excess of everyone’s expectations. The devastation has taken us by surprise. I am told it is because of [...]
40% of new record highs in EU due to warming climate
report available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.3145
3rd straight year of drought for New Zealand linked to climate change
New Zealand is in for a long, hot summer as La Nina hits our shores, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) says. Already, temperatures have soared across the country in late November, a pattern likely to continue until March, principal scientist James Renwick said today. “In November, pretty much all of the [...]
