World Kept On Heating Up In March

The National Climatic Data Center released their March global analysis this week, and determined that on a worldwide scale, March, 2014 was the fourth warmest on record.  

Most of the world was warm in March, 2014.
In much of North America, not so much.  

That might come as shocking news to people living here in Vermont, which endured its coldest March on record.

The northeastern United States and southeastern Canada with Vermont as the bullseye, was really the only place on earth that was much colder than normal.

Overall the first quarter of the year on earth, January through March, was the 7th warmest such period on record. That's almost a little surprising, since February was only the 21st warmest on record.

But January and March scored in the top five warmest this year, bringing up the average.

There are signs the heat could really turn on across the globe as we go through the rest of 2014. There are increasing signs that a strong El Nino is developing, one that could possibly be as strong as the epic 1998 El Nino. That one is considered the benchmark for biggest, warmest El Ninos.

An El Nino is a periodic warming of the sea surface in the eastern Pacific Ocean. El Ninos tend to disrupt weather patterns, and also jack up the worldwide average temperature.  If this El Nino is as strong as predicted, some months later this year might be the warmest ever recorded.

El Ninos can also be bad because they can make extreme storms develop in parts of the world. On the bright side, strong El Ninos often suppress hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, which would make the East Coast of the U.S. somewhat less likely to get blasted by one of those hurricanes come this fall.