The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary 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: The U.S. Is Due for a Wickedly Warm April
Dear Diary. Springs are getting warmer from climate change, so one might expect that we recently have seen a lot of warmer than average April’s across the United States. That has just not been the case recently for what technically is the mid-month for meteorological spring:
We are “due” to see a very warm April such that all monthly bars on the above chart become red due to climate change by the end of this decade.
The following record scoreboards show how chilly Aprils have been so far this decade. April 2024 has been the warmest so far:
DHMX= Daily High Max Reports. DLMN= Daily Low Min Reports. DHMN= Daily High Min Reports. DLMX=Daily Low Max Reports.
Boldly highlighted red-, blue-, or purple-colored months, such as December 2023 and June 2021, that have ratios of >10 to 1 daily or <1 to 10 of daily warm to low records are either historically hot or cold, most of which have made news. NCEI rankings are for the lower 48 states with the warmest ranking since 1895 of average temperatures being 131 and 1 being the coldest as of 2025. Blue colors represent cold months and red warm. Those months and years with counts close to a 1 to 1 ratio of highs to lows are colored black. All-time record hottest or coldest months and years are boldly colored in purple. NCDC rankings have been color coded (under tabs in each file) such that values of 54 to 74 are black representing neutral months or years (+ or – 10 from the average ranking of 64).
Totals are record reports for the entire United States including all territories minus those from Alaska. I’ve subtracted those from Alaska to get a better representation of what has occurred across the lower 48 states in association with lower 48 state rankings.
The National Weather Service does forecast an above average April with the most anomalously warm conditions across the South:
Certainly, met models suggest that the current record warm regime that we are seeing across the western U.S. will move eastward and last on and off into April with no big polar intrusions from Canada:
If this way out in time not that reliable model were to verify, there would be June-like record heat all across the Midwest, South, and eastern United States:
I’ll keep everyone posted know how temperature trends go into April.
Here are more “ETs” 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 More Climate News from Wednesday:
(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.)