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2006 was a very warm year for US! A review of the weather of 2006 in North America |
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The National Climatic Data Center announced that the year 2006 matched 1998 for the warmest year of the nation in the instrumental record. The year 1998 was very warm, in part, because it was an El Niño year. The Climate center actually has two data sets for historical climate, with a newer version in “beta tests” but due to be released in 2007. According to the newer data set, 2006 was just a hair less warm than 1998, but in all events, both years rank as the warmest two of the record. High temperatures were especially common in the center of the US and the Northeast, but most of the country saw much-above normal temperatures (the map below shows how 2006 ranks in the record of temperature, for each state. A larger number indicates that 2006 was one of the warmer years in the record of each state.) The national average was 2.2 deg F above the average of the 20th Century. Temperatures were notably above “seasonal normals” in the spring and summer; the summer of 2006 was the second warmest in the nation’s 120 year record. (continues below figure) |
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Rainfall was near normal for the nation as a whole, but there were significant regional patterns of wetness and dryness. The figure above ranks how wet the year 2006 was for each state. All of New England and New York plus Indiana and Michigan had an extremely wet year; but it was quite dry in Florida and Georgia. The Southwest lived through drought conditions last winter and spring (one year ago) then had good rainfall in the summer. Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest bore the brunt of well-above-normal rainfall for most of the year. Early snowfalls closed mountain passes in Oregon and Washington, and flooding caused some deaths. Seattle had its wettest month ever recorded in November. The Northeast from Washington DC to Maine had above normal rainfall in both summer and autumn.
In tune with a trend since 1950, there were fewer violent tornadoes in 2006 than is normal. But severe weather definitely afflicted parts of the Nation, especially in March and April. With over 50 deaths, the Nashville area of Tennessee bore the brunt of hundreds of tornadoes in the first week of April.
New York’s Central Park and Hartford saw all-time snowfall records broken during a two-day snow storm on Feb. 12-13. Western state snow pack was well established last Spring, and the snowfall season got an early and vigorous start in the autumn.
On a sober note, the wildfire season set a new record with 10 million acres burned in 96,000 wildfires. (Click to see satellite photo of Western wildfires, and resulting smoke which traveled hundreds of miles across three states.) |
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Atmospheric temperatures observed by NOAA satellites in the lower half of the atmosphere exceeded the twenty year average (1979-1998) again for the ninth year in a row.
The rather inactive hurricane season was attributed to an early appearance of El Niño in the tropical Pacific, which acts to suppress formation of storms in the Atlantic. |
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The National Climatic Data Center has posted a climate summary of 2006 at their site: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/ann/us-summary.html |
