Extreme November Warmth Greets Western Half Of The Nation

Lots of cities in the southwestern United States will
have their hottest November on record, or close to it. 

It's been sort if chilly off and on here in the Northeast, even getting down to minus 3 last night in the notorious cold spot of Saranac Lake, New York.

While our record warm October in the Northeast is a memory, November is the West's turn to blast the heat. Many places in the western half of the United States look like they're going to have their warmest November on record.

I count at least two dozen weather stations, mostly in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, that will have their toastiest November on record

That effort toward hottest November took a great leap forward with an avalanche of record high temperatures throughout the western and central parts of the country.

A few places had their hottest November day on record, which is a feat, since you'd expect such records to be broken at the beginning of the month. (The normal temperature, as we know, is lower in late November, and so are the record highs.)

Denver reache 81 degrees yesterday, its all time November high. Tucson, Arizona sweltered at 92 degrees Sunday, its latest 90 degree reading on record.

On Monday, the record warmth extended north into the Dakotas. Record highs included 67 at Sioux Falls, South Dakota and 70 in Huron, South Dakota. My in-laws in Yankton, South Dakota basked in 74 degree warmth. I'm jealous.  The normally ice box city of Fargo, North Dakota tied its record high of 54 degrees.

Here's another wild thing that demonstrates how warm this November has been in much of North America. There is a couple inches of snow on the ground outside my St. Albans, Vermont house this morning. It turns out that makes my property an extreme exception.  Only 4 percent of the lower 48 states' land mass has snow on the ground, the lowest for this time of year in 14 years.  Usually about 20 percent of the nation is snow covered now.

Of course, snow cover is highly variable. It was actually above normal in the nation at the start of the month. And I'm sure snow cover will expand hugely next week when a weather pattern change will bring much colder weather to most of the nation.

Here's more: According to Bob Henson at his Category 6 blog over at Weather Underground, November will mark the 36th consecutive month during which there were more record highs than record lows in the United States overall.

The most consecutive months record highs outpaced record lows in the United States since they started keeping track in 1920.

As noted yesterday, we're anticipating a swing to much colder weather in about a week for much of the nation, so we'll see if that 36-month streak keeps going, or finally gets broken.