unseasonably warm weather

I’m a fairly new transplant to the Sunshine State. Been only here three years but for the past two years, I’ve experienced how COLD the weather could go.

This time 'round, we’ve had a warm winter though. I remember celebrating brother-in-law S’s birthday in February this year with just a light sweater covering me out on the patio at night. On the same day last year, we’d been wearing bubble jackets!

No wonder.

The National Climatic Data Center maps the temperature averages across the states and us geeky gardeners loves to, well, peruse it. (I never knew I’d find maps fascinating to begin with.) Their data shows that we’ve had unseasonably warm weather—from winter to before spring—this season.

You can see that from January to March, it has progressively gotten warmer in Florida.

From the NCDC State of the Climate overview for March, 2012:

Every state in the nation experienced a record warm daily temperature during March. According to preliminary data, there were 15,272 warm temperature records broken (7,755 daytime records, 7,517 nighttime records). Hundreds of locations across the country broke their all-time March records. There were 21 instances of the nighttime temperatures being as warm, or warmer, than the existing record daytime temperature for a given date. (Emphasis mine.)

This wasn't good, apparently:

The warmer-than-average conditions across the eastern US....created an environment favorable for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. According to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, there were 223 preliminary tornado reports during March, a month that averages 80 tornadoes. The majority of the tornadoes occurred during the March 2-3 outbreak across the Ohio Valley and Southeast, which caused 40 fatalities and damages exceeding 1.5 billion U.S. dollars. (Again, emphasis mine.)

The past year's temperatures were “above normal” in all but six states in the continental US, with record warmest in several states up north!

The 12-month period (April 2011-March 2012), which includes the second hottest summer (June-August) and fourth warmest winter (December-February), was the warmest such period for the contiguous United States. Twenty-eight states were record warm for the 12-month period, and an additional eleven states had April-March temperatures ranking among their ten warmest. Oregon and Washington were the only states cooler than average for the period. The 12-month running average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 55.4 degrees F, which is 2.6 degrees F above the 20th century average. (I gotta emphasize what I think is interesting, don't I? Heh.)

El Niňo marching on or climate change?

I’m a tropical bird so I like that the weather was comfortable during the past winter. But...I’m afraid we’re paying for that this spring. I don’t even want to think how high the temperatures will go in the coming summer.

Source: State of the Climate National Overview, March 2012 (NCDC)