Unless something unbelievable and unexpected happens between now and the stroke of midnight Saturday night, the month of March 2012 will go down as the warmest on record for Eau Claire.  The numbers are not even close compared to previous Marches.  Check out the stats below:

Warmest Marches and Average Temp. for that Month

1. **2012 – 47.9°
2. 1910 – 44.6°
3. 1946 – 41.9°
4. 1973 – 39.7°
5. 1945/2010 – 39.6°

** – In Progress

Top Five Warmest Marches for Eau Claire

The list above is ordered from highest to lowest in overall average temperature.  Basically, take every hourly observation from 12 AM March 1st through midnight March 31st and find the average.  A three degree difference between 2012 and 1910 is impressive, but it gets better!  Read the next two paragraphs and you will understand why.

March 1910 still holds on to the title of warmest high temperature average with 58.3°, but barely.  March 2012 is close behind at 57.7°.  This statistic will remain the same, unless our daytime high is above 83° Saturday afternoon. 

So how will March 2012 overall be significantly warmer than March 1910?  The average low temperature for March 2012 is 38.1°, a tremendous seven degrees warmer compared to March 1910′s 30.9° average.  In fact, March 1948 is the second warmest on record at 31.8°.  Maple syrup producers around the area will tell you this spring was the worst sapping season they can ever recall.  With only 11 mornings below freezing this month, that’s not surprising.  1910 was slightly better with 18 mornings at or below freezing.

Finally, I can’t go without mentioning the number of new temperature records established this month.  Ten daytime high records were logged, while eleven warmest, overnight lows were recorded.  That’s a total of 21 temperature records! 

What we have witnessed this month as far as temperature is unprecedented.  It will likely be several years, or a lifetime, before this happens again in our area.  Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more from Beyond the Forecast…

Posted under Hometown Weather, Weather, Weblogs

9:20 AM, January 12.  Temperature: 11°, wind chill: -1°.

Yes, it does feel cold outside!  With highs today only reaching the middle teens and strong northwest winds, some would say it’s downright brutal outside.

This certainly isn’t the coldest weather we’ve experienced in the Chippewa Valley.  In fact, our low temperature average for this time of the year is 5°, while our average high is 23°.  But with readings in the 40s and low 50s earlier this week, you can’t help but feel chilled to the bone!  At least I do.  I don’t mind the snow, but I really don’t like the colder weather, especially when the utility bill comes.  There must be a mouse or a hamster spinning that wheel for me in the electric meter…

The talk about arctic air’s return has me thinking about something we haven’t discussed much this winter: wind chill.  The last few years, wind chill readings from -15° to -30° were not unheard of in western Wisconsin.  This year, as you know, it’s a different story.  But as I take a quick look at the long range temperature projections, I can tell you wind chill is something we’ll have to get a little more used to again.

Wind Chill Chart --- Courtesy: National Weather Service

Most have a basic understanding of wind chill, but if you don’t, that’s perfectly fine.  In short, the colder and winder conditions are, the colder it feels outside.  Check out the chart on the left, courtesy of the National Weather Service.  If the morning temperature is 0° and the wind is northwest at 15 mph, the wind chill is -19°.   Hopefully never this case, but -20° with a 15 mph wind, the wind chill will be -45°.  Why is the wind chill important?  If you study the chart, you’ll see different colors.  Frostbite can always occur anytime the temperature is below freezing, but it the process is much quicker when the wind chill is -18° or colder.

I’ll end today’s blog post with a trivia question I hope you’ll take a stab at.  Even if you don’t have a clue, don’t be afraid to chime in explaining how the cold affects you.  I would love to hear from you, and part of my job is helping people understand weather.  And, no cheating!   Stay tuned for more from Beyond the Forecast…

Posted under Hometown Weather, Weather

Fact: today is January 10th.  I know that because I checked the calendar this morning. ;-)  Plus, I’ve been counting down the days to my birthday, which is tomorrow, the 11th.  I just seemed like I was just celebrating my birthday.  My, how the time flies!  Ok, I digress…

January 10th: you know as well as I do it doesn’t feel like January outside!  Today, we will break shatter our standing high temperature record of 45 established in 1980.  With highs in the upper 40s and lows in the 20s, one could arguably claim it’s late March.  It’s absolutely unbelieveable!  In all my memory, I can’t remember a time when daytime highs were constantly in the 30s and 40s in early January.  In addition, I can’t remember a time when the first day of winter came and went, and we haven’t had a whole lot of snow to show for it.  Can you?

I don’t want to bore you with statistics, because we science people are good at that.  But just roll with me for a second.  Let’s consider December 2011 alone.  Last month, the overall, average temperature (mean) was 32.6 degrees, more than five degrees above the normal.  Think about that for a moment, and also note the mean temperature was above freezing!  It’s certainly not our warmest December on record; that happened in 1931.  But quite impressive!  So far, January’s mean temperature is 25.7 degrees, more than 10 degrees above  normal.

Many are asking: why in the world is it so warm outside?  Well, the “world” has a lot to with it.  I’m not talking about climate change, a topic I do want to discuss in the future, but from an unbiased point of view.  In short, I’m talking about the position of the polar jetstream, combined with other weather events.

Figure 1: Current track of Jetstreams. Polar jet is blue, subtropical jet is orange.

Take a look at Figure 1.  In general, the jetstream is a current of fast moving air in the higher levels of the atmosphere.  There are two jetstreams in each hemisphere, the polar and subtropical.  The polar jet is the strongest because is supported by the large temperature difference between the poles and mid-latitudes.  Meanwhile, the subtropical jet’s main driving force is Earth’s rotation.  My point: the jetstreams, especially the polar jet, separate colder air from warmer air.  As you see in Figure 1, the polar jet is positioned north of Wisconsin, meaning mild temperatures for us!

There’s a lot of discussion as to why the polar jet is north of us.  The most agreed upon theory is the Madden/Julian Oscillation.  (MJO)  I know, big phrase, and it’s even bigger problem to describe given its complexity.  The bottomline is the MJO is a pressure disturbance in the tropics that can modify the track of the jetstreams.  In our case, the disturbance, now located in the Pacific, is causing the polar jet to track north of the Midwest.

Figure 2: Three Month Precipitation Forecast, NA. Green (above average)/ Orange (below average) Courtesy: Climate Prediction Center

Looking ahead, with an incoming cold front Wednesday morning, temperatures will dive below the seasonal average.  Thursday and Friday, we’ll be lucky to make it into the upper teens, 30 degrees colder compared to today and Monday.  But this cold snap is just a short-term deal.  For one, there’s no snow on the ground, so our temperature can rise quickly with the sun’s help.  Secondly, the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) suggests temperatures will remain at or just above average through the rest of the winter season – back to the whole MJO thing.  The center does suggest near or above average precipitation though.  That’s good, in my opinion.  Since December 1, we’ve received less than a foot of snow, less than a decent winter storm.  Unbelievable…

Stay tuned for more from Beyond the Forecast…

Posted under Hometown Weather, Weather