The Climate Lottery is a forecast contest free to play by giving your picks in an e-mail or in this post’s comment section. No prizes will be given out for the contest, which is for educational purposes only. The main purpose for the contest is to get climate change conscious people interested in National Center for Environmental Information climate products. The special account that I have set up for the contest is guywalton94@gmail.com. This time I will make a personal pick, following along with any players.
I’m getting all of my information for every Climate Lottery contest here, which I hope you will refer to often:
National Maps | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (noaa.gov)
The National Center for Environmental Information ranking numbers for average temperatures of the lower 48 states for Spring 2023 will be posted on or shortly after June 7th, 2024, which will be the official “Climate Lottery” numbers of the contest. Any subsequent changes by NCEI after their initial posted rankings will not be valid for the contest…but those ranking numbers will change with time.
The winning Climate Lottery numbers for Winter 2023/24 (DEC, JAN, FEB) were 129/86/128 with a Power Ball number of 129 for the season, meaning that the Winter 2023/34 was the warmest fall in recorded history for the lower 48 states in the United States. Incidentally, my picks of 129\95\128 P.B. 128 were the closest that I’ve come to the correct numbers in the many years of playing this contest. Don Sutherland correctly guessed that we would see the warmest winter on record with a Power Ball ranking of 129.
Hello again to all weather and climate geeks out there. Winter 2023/24 turned out to be well the warmest winter on record for most of the United States. If you wish to play “The Climate Lottery” pick one number between 1 and 130 (with 1 representing the coldest possible ranking and 130 being the highest possible ranking) for March, April, and May. Also, pick a “Power Ball” or overall ranking number for the spring season as a whole between 1 and 130. The Power Ball ranking will serve as a tiebreaker for any close picks between contestants. Your picks are NCEI rankings for average temperatures across the lower 48 states. Because 2024 will be the 130th year that the National Center for Environmental Information has been ranking years since 1895, all months for 2024 will have a warmest ranking of 130.
Please give your picks to Guywalton94@gmail.com or in the comments section at the end of this post before April 5th, 2024. If you wait until just before April 5th to make your picks, you can make an educated guess as to what the ranking for March will be and also have a heads-up guess for April.
The Power Ball (or overall National Center for Environment Information) number for Winter 2023/24 for the lower 48 states was 129, which was the warmest ranking possible for the lower 48 states. I’ve defined individual lottery numbers as a rankings for each month for the lower 48 states, Power Ball numbers as those for each season, and Mega Ball numbers as those for each year.
Chances for an entire season of below average temperatures are becoming much less likely across the lower 48 states due to carbon pollution. The whole point of these posts is to demonstrate how skewed temperatures have become towards warmth due to climate change and to get people to look at NCEI data. Of course, as far as the globe goes, the larger an area that is compared to average, the more likely that area is to be above long-term averages. What has happened this decade is yet more proof of the Climate Lottery game being loaded for warmth in the United States. Balls coming out of the Climate Lottery hopper are likely to have high numbers.
Here’s a breakdown of the National Climatic Center’s ranking numbers by state for Winter 2023/24, which was ranked warmest or 129th coldest (or a Powerball ranking of 129):
Warm conditions relative to average were widespread across United States. Many northern states saw there warmest winter in recorded history.
The following is a breakdown of each month for Winter 2023/24. Each chart shows “Climate Lottery” numbers for each state (or rankings) from a scale of 1 to 129.
In December the overall ranking for the lower 48 states was 129 (out of 129 through the year 2023):
Winter started out very warm across most of the country. Several northern states had their warmest Decembers on record. No one state had below average conditions. December was the warmest month relative to long term temperature averages for Winter 2023/24.
In January the overall ranking for the lower 48 states was 86 (out of 130):
An Arctic outbreak of frigid air was cold enough to make several states have below average temperatures. Overall, the CONUS was slightly above average temperatures, January was the coldest winter month relative to average.
In February the overall ranking for the lower 48 states was 128 (out of 130):
February was the third warmest February on record. During February the warmest conditions relative to average were in the north-central area where several states saw their warmest Februarys on record. Only Florida had near average temperatures.
The following are the rankings, so far, for individual months or “Climate Lottery number picks” from 2014-2023:
The average ranking for 2024 is 65 since the coldest ranking would be 1 and the hottest 130. I have color coded all well below average temperature rankings for this post at or below 55 blue and all those above temperature rankings at or above 75 red, with rankings + or – 10 from the mean value of 65 black for near average temperature rankings. Record warmest months are highlighted in purple. With time, the rankings for each individual month, season and year will change as more data becomes available from NCEI. Also, for reference, the annual or “Mega Ball” numbers are shown on the chart. For example, the Mega Ball number for 2022 was 111, meaning that 2022 was the eighteenth warmest year on record for the lower 48 states.
Seasonal or Power Ball rankings for winter are those for DEC/JAN/FEB, spring are MAR/APR/MAY, summer JUN/JUL/AUG, and fall SEP/OCT/NOV. Mega Ball rankings for each year are included on the chart below. Also, keep in mind that NCEI rankings for seasons are not merely an average of rankings of individual month of a season or year, as was the case for Winter 2023/24- 129/86/128 P.B. 129:
Notice that since the start of 2014 only three out of the last thirty-seven seasons were near average or “black.” No season was below average or colored blue. Thirty-four out of the last thirty-seven seasons since 2014 have been “red” or “purple,” being above average. Winter 2023/24 definitely adds to our warm stats and was also colored purple. Indeed, the Climate Lottery hopper is very much loaded for above average temperatures for the lower 48 states looking at recent history. Yes, the “Casino of Climate Averages” is cheating causing the “House of Warming” to win just about every season due to carbon pollution.
I hope that everyone will have a great, safe spring.
Guy Walton…”The Climate Guy”