Data Comparisons

December Anomalies: Pretty Picutres.

5 Comments

I’ve been in the process of downloading monthly data from “The Climate Explorer”. In the process I asked Geert Jan some questions. Periodically we exchange comments about the weather. Yesterday, he mentioned he’d been skating (something that he has missed the past few years) and I mentioned we it has been cold snowy in Chicago. Of course, he already knew that, and pointed me to the anomalies reported at KNMI.

Here are the Nov. and Dec. temperature anomalies. Note that Chicago has been a bit chilly. (In fact sufficiently so to motivate me to crochet an afghan.)

Figure 1: Monthly Temperature Anomalies from KNMI
Figure 1: Monthly Temperature Anomalies from KNMI

If you read the weather news stories, you’ll notice the stories of extreme cold tend to be highlighted in blue or green in the figure above.

Chicago has also been snowy compared to our norm. (Yes, I really did have to shovel four times in one day during December. I complained about this. )

Figure 2: Snow cover anomalies from KNMI
Figure 2: Snow cover anomalies from KNMI

Geert Jan mentioned that monthly precipitation values weren’t universally available for Dec. I told him our meteorologists report Dec. brought record high precipitation.

January continues cold and snowy. I finished the December afghan; it was green to match the carpet in the family room. I am starting a January one for Jim’s office; it’s blue to match the paint in his office. I hope the color choice doesn’t presage a deeper cold snap!

5 thoughts on “December Anomalies: Pretty Picutres.”

  1. I would like to tell you that you won’t be needing the afghan very long, but, The Farmers Almanac and others disagree!!

    You might look for a solar powered snow blower! ;>)

  2. That snowfall anomaly map doesn’t show the Spokane area, which has already exceeded the all-time record for an entire year! About 6 feet. (Maybe the area is too small to show up?).

  3. jae– did your snow fall in Nov or Dec? (I heard all the snow in western WA is going to melt when rain showers arrive. They are predicting record flooding.)

  4. I’m kind of surprised that Alaska seems so neutral in December; I just finished reading an article on how they’ve been going through two weeks of -60F in the interior. Maybe I’m reading it wrong, or maybe the cold started too late in the month to make a difference on this map. I feel sorry for their suffering, but to be honest I’d rather the cold air stay up there than come down and hit the Midwest, as is typically its wont. This winter has been brutal in Wisconsin so far.

    Oh, and I notice that just across the Bering Strait, in Siberia, they’re in the +6 range. What a difference a stretch of water makes!

  5. I’m with JAE here – I live in Spokane. We just broke records for most snow fall in 24 hours, most snow fall in 48 hours, most snow fall in December, and most snow fall in a single month ever. Six and an half feet ultimately at our place.
    And on the pretty picture map for December Spokane is shown as either “normal” or -0.2 deviation from normal. Since the map does not apparently measure the reality on the ground, what does it actually measure?

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