Shame on you Lori for even thinking
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In today's Cleveland paper it is official.
This has been the mildest winter in 141 years of weather recording.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The winter that wasn't will go down as the warmest on record.
Looking back over a wimpy winter season, we can say that no one has ever experienced a warm winter like 2011-12 in Northeast Ohio.
The average high temperature this winter was 44.5 degrees, displacing the winter of 1982-83 (43.9) and nearly eight degrees higher than average, according
a Plain Dealer analysis of 141 years of temperature data kept by the National Weather Service.
No wonder -- we had 23 days between Dec. 22 through March 19 when the temperature reached at least 50 degrees.
The mild winter has been the
talk of the nation, of course. All but one state, New Mexico, had temperatures this winter above its respective long-term 20th century average.
But the non-winter of 2011-12 in Northeast Ohio was not only about warm days, but very few cold ones. Our average low temperature of 30.3 degrees was also the highest on record. More telling was that we had more days above freezing last winter (74) than any previous winter.
In two words: jet stream. In a few more:
La Nina year combined with and a push from the
North Atlantic Oscillation has left the jet stream far north of much of the country, allowing warm air from the Gulf of Mexico to push far enough north to keep the winter warmer. And lately, the string of 70-degree days has been a product of a stubborn high-pressure system stuck over the eastern third of the continental United States.
Northeast Ohio basking in a record-shattering streak of seven straight, sensational days at 70 degrees or higher. Tuesday's 82-degree high broke the previous record of 76 set in 1995, the third day out of the last four in which we've broken or tied a
record for March.
And we could eclipse 80 again today, the first full day of spring.
That ridge of pressure should finally become unstuck over the next several days, said Dennis Bray of the National Weather Service station at Cleveland Hopkins Airport.
"We're finally going to be a little cooler this weekend, in the 60s, but that's still well above normal even if its not the 80s," Bray said.
But there's no real cold snap in the long-range forecast, he said.
"The NOAA three-month forecast says above normal temperatures," he said. "But even though I can safely say 'No lake-effect snow this week,' we've had snow in Cleveland into May, so don't get too comfortable."
While the 32.7 inches of snow through the last full day of winter this year is one of the lowest totals on record, it is not too different from 1982-83 when Cleveland had only 31.4 inches at the official end of the winter season.
And then we got another 16.5 inches of spring snow.
Always love WH.
Jim Kathy & Robert ~ NE. OH.
But we're not gonna think that way. Spring is here to stay!
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