Monday, April 9, 2012

Snowiest Season in Anchorage

Image (click to enlarge): Anchorage snowfall through April 9, 2012, from National Weather Service

9 PM Update: Updated chart through April 9.

Original post:
As of Saturday evening, Anchorage, Alaska set a new seasonal snowfall record with 134.5". From the National Weather Service:
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ANCHORAGE AK
740 PM AKDT SAT APR 7 2012

UPDATED WITH LATEST SNOW TOTAL

...ANCHORAGE SETS NEW SEASONAL SNOWFALL RECORD...

SNOW HAS TAPERED OFF TO FLURRIES AT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
FORECAST OFFICE AND NO ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATION IS EXPECTED FROM
THIS STORM. AN ADDITIONAL 0.9 INCHES OF SNOW FELL BETWEEN 4 PM
AND 7 PM WHICH BRINGS THE TOTAL FOR THE DAY TO 4.3 INCHES.

THIS MAKES THE 2011-2012 WINTER SEASON THE SNOWIEST EVER WITH
A TOTAL OF 134.5 INCHES. THE PREVIOUS SEASONAL SNOWFALL RECORD
WAS 132.6 INCHES SET IN 1954-1955.

Warmest March, Warmest 1st Quarter, Warmest 12 Months Apr-Mar, 2nd Warmest Oct-Mar in U.S.

April 9, AM Update: The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) posted the preliminary U.S. climate summary for March this morning. The report confirmed that this was the warmest March for the contiguous 48 states since the beginning of official national climate statistics in 1895. The average temperature of 51.1° was 8.6° above the long-term March average and a significant 0.5° above the previous record in March 1910. The only previous month in 118 years of data with a greater departure from average was January 2006.

The extent of the record breaking was truly astonishing. Among the highlights:
  • 25 states had their warmest March on record
  • 15 other states had top-10 warmest Marches
  • The only state with below-average temeperatures was Washington.
  • Every state had a record daily warm temperature
  • Hundreds of all-time March temperature records were set
  • 21 low temperatures were equal to or higher than the previous daily high temperature record
The average temperature of 42.0° for January-March in the contiguous U.S. was also the warmest on record at 6.0° above the long-term average. For the 3 months, 25 states had their warmest first quarter, and 16 more had top-10 temperatures.

For the 6-month cold season (October-March), it was the second warmest on record (3.8° above average) for the contiguous U.S., behind 1999-2000. There were 21 states across most of the Northeast and Midwest with record warm cold seasons.

Original post:

After the warmest March in both the Northeast and Midwest it was to be expected that the extreme heat of March 2012 exceeded even the previous record March of 1910 in the contiguous U.S. From Stu Ostro of The Weather Channel:
Details to be posted as they are available.

Seasonal Outlook

Latest seasonal forecast: Click here.


Latest 3-month temperature outlook from Climate Prediction Center/NWS/NOAA.