Record Warm Year in Southeast

The National Weather Service's non-standard format and schedule for reporting climate summaries makes this a bit difficult to track in a systematic way, but several major NWS locations with long data histories in the Southeast observed record or near-record warm annual average temperatures in 2012. (Previous posts have covered annual records set in the Mid Atlantic, Northeast, and Midwest.)

Florida:

...TAMPA CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR 2012... 
...2ND WARMEST YEAR SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1890...
THE 2012 YEARLY AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF 74.8 DEGREES RANKS AS THE 2ND 
WARMEST YEAR SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1890. THE WARMEST YEAR HAD AN 
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF 75.3 DEGREES WHICH OCCURRED IN 1990.

...FORT MYERS CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR 2012... 
...3RD WARMEST YEAR SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1902...
THE 2012 YEARLY AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF 76.2 DEGREES RANKS AS THE 3RD 
WARMEST YEAR SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1902. THE WARMEST YEAR HAD AN 
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF 76.6 DEGREES WHICH OCCURRED IN 1994. 

The year 2012 had an average temperature of 69.9 degrees, which was 2.1 degrees above normal. This ties with 1998 for the 2nd warmest year on record in Tallahassee, behind only 1949 which had an average temperature of 70.1 degrees. The coldest temperature of the year was 18 degrees on the morning of Janaury 4th. This tied the record low for the date. No other daily record low temperatures were recorded for the remainder of the calendar year. Freezing temperatures were observed on only 15 days this year. The last freeze of the 2011-2012 season occurred on Valentine's Day. This is about a month earlier than usual.

...PENSACOLA......WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD...
THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR 2012 WAS 70.7 DEGREES WHICH BROKE THE
RECORD FOR THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD PREVIOUSLY SET IN 1974 OF 70.0
DEGREES. THIS WAS 2.8 DEGREES ABOVE THE NORMAL ANNUAL TEMPERATURE OF
67.9 DEGREES. 

Georgia:

2012 average temperatures were above normal for the year by 1 to 2 degrees (which was the 2nd warmest on record at Alma and St Simons Island across SE Georgia), these were set in motion by the well above-normal readings the first half of the year.

Alma, GA (AMG)                  68.5 F ( + 1.3 F ) 2nd Warmest
St Simons Island, GA (SSI)  70.0 F ( + 1.9 F ) 2nd Warmest 

Site	Avg. Temp. and Current Ranking	Normal	Dep. from Normal	Previous Records
Athens	64.1 (4th Warmest)	62.6	+1.5	#1: 65.8 in 1933
Atlanta	65.6 (Warmest)	62.6	+3.0	#2: 65.0 in 1990
Columbus	67.9 (Warmest)	65.7	+2.2	#2: 67.8 in 1998
Macon	66.0 (6th Warmest)	64.6	+1.4	#1: 67.0 in 1990

Virginia:

************RICHMOND***********
THE AVERAGE ANNUAL TEMPERATURE FOR 2012 WAS 61.1 F...RANKING AS THE
WARMEST ON RECORD. PRIOR TO THIS YEAR...THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD
HAD BEEN 1990 WHEN THE AVERAGE ANNUAL TEMPERATURE WAS 61.0 F. BASED
ON THE PERIOD 1981-2010...THE NORMAL ANNUAL VALUE IS 58.9 F.
TEMPERATURE RECORDS AT RICHMOND DATE BACK TO 1897 FOR DAILY
TEMPERATURE DATA AND 1881 FOR AVERAGE TEMPERATURE.

************NORFOLK***********
THE AVERAGE ANNUAL TEMPERATURE FOR 2012 WAS 62.75 F...RANKING AS THE
WARMEST ON RECORD. PRIOR TO THIS YEAR...THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD
HAD BEEN 1990 WHEN THE AVERAGE ANNUAL TEMPERATURE WAS 62.73 F. BASED
ON THE PERIOD 1981-2010...THE NORMAL ANNUAL VALUE IS 60.2 F.
TEMPERATURE RECORDS AT NORFOLK DATE BACK TO 1874.