Extreme Temperature Diary- Thursday February 1st, 2024/ Main Topic: Record Warmth Dominates Most of North America Well into February

guyonclimate_mi5tor

The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track global extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉

Main Topic: Record Warmth Dominates Most of North America Well into February

Dear Diary. After the first three weeks of January of record cold there was a big “January thaw” across most of North America but not anything that is typical. Usually, a January thaw is a weather regime that refers to warmth, which occurs during the first month of the year that temporarily disrupts very cold conditions which have dominated most of the United States since Thanksgiving. Mild air masses in association with historic January thaws are mostly not big record setters, nor do they last for weeks.

The thaw currently over North America is super warm, ramped up by climate change interacting with the jet stream to produce a mild Pacific flow southeast of Alaska. We can see the end result of this on Climate Reanalyzer charts:

By my count the cold waves of January produced 186 reports of all-time records in the U.S. indicating how brutality sharp chill was then. Coming off a record warm 2023 for the planet with January 2024 most likely being the warmest January in recorded history, I find that statistic startling. Don’t forget that December 2023 was the warmest December in recorded history for the U.S. by far. We saw the highest monthly ratios of daily high max and high min to low min and low max records in my data base, which now extends back into the 1880s. Now we are seeing a plethora of record warm records across the Pacific Northwest and Midwest that is truly historic. We are indeed seeing what I call “weather whiplash” ramped up by climate change.

Here is just one example of a historic record from yesterday. The “icebox of the nation,” International Falls, that mostly resides below 0°F during January, set a monthly record in the 50s:

All this warmth has rapidly melted snow cover produced by storms in association with cold outbreaks in early January. Here was the snow cover at its peak on January 16th just after a system brought heavy snow to portions of the South:

And here is what we see today:

It is quite unusual for Minneapolis to not have snow cover on February 1st, and ice cover across the Great Lakes is paltry:

Atypical warmth will last well into February, but don’t declare that “winter is over.” It appears that there might be one more stratospheric warming event leading to chillier times after Valentines Day:

I’ll keep all of my readers and followers abreast as to what transpires as we move through February.

Here are more “ET’s” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:

Here is brand new January 2024 climatology:

Here is More Climate News from Thursday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)

More from the Weather Department:

Today’s News on Sustainable Energy, Traditional Polluting Energy from Fossil Fuel, and the Green Revolution:

More on the Environment and Nature:

More on Other Science and the Beauty of Earth and this Universe:

If you like these posts and my work on record temperature ratios, please contribute via my PayPal widget on this site. Thanks in advance for any support. 

Guy Walton… “The Climate Guy”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *