Measuring up the Summer of 2010!

From record-breaking heatwaves to drought and fires, on a global scale the summer of 2010 will undoubtedly go down in the books as one of the most extreme for the northern hemisphere. But how extreme and how hot... and how does it compare to years prior?

According to recently released information by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), globally, June through August was the fourth-warmest summer period in GISS's 131-year-temperature record. The same months during 2009, in contrast, were the second warmest on record. The cooler 2010 summer temperatures (and by cooler I mean SLIGHTLY and UNNOTICEABLE by many) were primarily the result of the current La Niña pattern replacing El Niño which has controlled our weather for the better part of the last year or so.

Looking at this information you probably cannot help but wonder if this trend points towards a warming planet, especially when global seasonal temperatures for the spring of 2010 also were the warmest on record. It is the public's instinct to look at local temperature anomalies and draw that conclusion, but GISS says these trends have limited relevance on a global scale.

In reviewing some interesting data, I personally made note that 2010 is shaping up very similar to 2005 which was THE warmest year on record. We are looking at similar atmospheric patterns, and that includes the current influences on the Atlantic hurricane season. GISS believes 2010 will end up measuring sufficiently close to 2005 and the last few months of the year will be very telling as that is the period that brought 2005 from being one of the warmest to THE warmest.

Here are some links to previous posts I've written on the extremes of summer 2010!

Heat Wave to Continue Choking mid-Atlantic, Northeast U.S. (July 6, 2010)

NEQ Friday Review, V.10 (July 9, 2010)

Extreme Heat Could Become Summer's Norm (July 22, 2010)

Russia Heat Wave is OUT OF CONTROL! (August 10, 2010)

Global Extremities of Summer 2010 (August 17, 2010)

2010 U.S. Summer Review (September 15, 2010)

Return to home

2010 U.S. Summer Review

2010 was the fourth warmest U.S. summer on record!

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) confirmed this week that the summer of 2010 was, as expected and fully observed by many... HOT!

Published in NOAA's State of the Climate report and based on records dating back to 1895, the NCDC notes that although the entire country experienced the fourth warmest summer on record, three climate regions in the continuous United States had temperatures in the top five: the southeast (warmest), the central (third warmest) and the northeast (fourth warmest). Several cities broke summer temperature records, including New York, Philadelphia, Trenton, Wilmington, Tallahassee and Asheville.

Here are some highlights from the report:
NCDC's Climate Extremes Index (CEI) for summer 2010 was about one-and-a-half times its historical average

• The northeast climate region experienced its warmest January-August period with an average temperature more than 3.4°F above the long-term average
  
  
• The majority of the U.S. had above-average temperatures last month. No state experienced an average temperature significantly below its long-term average
  
  
• Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey each had their warmest year-to-date period and all of the Northeastern states ranked in the top ten percent of warmest periods on record
  
  
• Only Florida and Texas had below normal temperatures for the entire year so far

Learn more about these interesting summer of 2010 facts here.

It should be noted that several weather forecasting models predict cooling in months and years ahead, so if you're like me and found this past summer difficult to deal with, relief might be in sight!

Return to home