Extreme Temperature Diary- Saturday January 27, 2024/ Main Topic: “Whiplash Warmth” Returns to North America

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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: “Whiplash Warmth” Returns to North America

Dear Diary. As warm as the planet is these days, we knew that intense cold weather of this January could not last for long. December 2023 was so anomalously warm that an opposite reaction was likely but of short duration. Still, by my count using the NCEI record tool, there were 81 all-time cold records set in association with the first January cold outbreak, dubbed Cold Wave Gerry by yours truly, a fairly high number in this day and age of increased warmth due to our long-term fossil fuel use:

Daily Weather Records | Data Tools | Climate Data Online (CDO) | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) (noaa.gov)

Now a new warm pattern has set up across North America melting most of the snow and ice that occurred there earlier this month. Flooding from river ice jams has becoming a problem in Illinois. Where there was once snow cover of up to a foot in the Tennessee Valley, flooding became a threat there and surrounding areas of the South due to quickly warming conditions and spring type storm systems. Yesterday the mercury got up to 80°F for the first time in recorded history during January at Washington D.C. We are truly in a period of “weather whiplash” in which record cold conditions are followed by record warmth, which will put a strain on our environment and make most of us uncomfortable.

This 850 millibar anomaly chart from this morning is astounding over North America:

What makes that 80°F reading at Washington D.C. so amazing is the fact that a very cold weather regime that ended a snow drought there had occurred only about a week before this warm record event. For more here is an article from the Washington Post, which also has some details on other records set over the Southeast on Friday:

Washington soars to 80 degrees, its highest January temperature on record – The Washington Post

Washington soars to 80 degrees, its highest January temperature on record

It’s the earliest in the year the District has reached 80, by several weeks

By Ian Livingston

Updated January 26, 2024 at 5:17 p.m. EST|Published January 26, 2024 at 2:08 p.m. EST

A person walks a dog in Franklin Park in Washington on Friday. (Robert Miller/The Washington Post)

Welcome to June in January and record-shattering winter warmth in Washington.

Temperatures surged about 35 degrees above normal Friday, as highs climbed well into the 70s to near 80 across the region, breaking records that stood for decades.

Reagan National Airport, the official observing site for Washington, reached 80 degrees, the highest observed in January since record keeping began in 1872.

Friday’s temperature reached 80 degrees earlier than any other year by several weeks. The previous mark was set in 2018, when Washington hit 80 degrees on Feb. 21. In an average year, Washington doesn’t post its first 80-degree high until March 28.

Because of human-caused climate change, winter temperatures in the 70s or higher have become much more common in recent decades in the Washington region.

Temperatures at 2 p.m. across the region. (Capital Weather Gang)

It’s unusual to reach 70 degrees in January in our region, something that happens about once every few years on average.

The surge of warmth pushed temperatures about 45 to 50 degrees higher than a week ago when it snowed 3 to 5 inches.

Washington’s previous January record high was 79 degrees, reached on this date in 1950. The last time it hit at least 70 in January was in 2020. Warm days are more probable in December and February, especially in recent decades because of the long-term increase in temperatures.

A person walks along a path near the Tidal Basin on Friday. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Friday’s record is comparable to or even warmer than those set further south this year, including in Tallahassee (80), Austin (77), New Orleans (77) and Phoenix (77).

Dulles International Airport also set a January record high Friday, soaring to 79 degrees. Records there date to 1963. Only five days ago, the airport dipped to a frigid 7 degrees amid a siege of Arctic air that has since been displaced by a surge of warmth from the Gulf of Mexico.

Then there’s the humidity. Dew points — a measure of the moisture in the air — climbed into the mid-60s, which is close to unheard of during the middle of winter. That’s sufficient humidity to fuel severe thunderstorms in spring and a stark turnaround from dew points in the single digits early in the week.

Dew point records are incomplete, but 66 degrees is the highest during the month in a database maintained by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, with hourly data going back to 1937.

Dew points of 65 or higher are almost unheard of this time of year. (Iowa Environmental Mesonet)

The humid air kept Thursday night’s and Friday morning’s temperatures much warmer than normal.

A wind off the chilly Potomac River allowed Washington to fall to 52 degrees this morning, despite most of the area staying near or above 60. Dulles only dipped to 64 degrees, which would top the previous warm minimum for the date by 24 degrees, and mark the warmest low recorded in January.

Elsewhere across the region, Baltimore fell one degree short of its daily and monthly record, with a high of 78 degrees. Charlottesville reached 80 degrees, while Annapolis climbed to 77.

Further south, Charleston, S.C., reached 83 degrees, tying its January record high.

Outside South Florida and parts of the Carolinas, high temperatures in the Washington region were the warmest in the nation.

This warmth was projected by computer models more than a week ago, but its magnitude exceeded even the most aggressive forecasts.

The forecast from the European weather model from eight days ago was quite right locally. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

This early taste of late spring and early summer won’t last long. Highs this weekend will dip into the 50s and then the 40s. However, the forecast for the next week to 10 days suggests that temperatures will generally be somewhat above normal.

Jason Samenow contributed to this report.

By Ian Livingston Ian Livingston is a forecaster/photographer and information lead for the Capital Weather Gang. By day, Ian is a defense and national security researcher at a D.C. think tank. Twitter

More:

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 more new 2023 climatology:

Here is More Climate News from Saturday:

(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”

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