Vermont December Was Two-Faced: Winter To Mild

Snow squalls lurk west of St. Albans, Vermont on December 18. The
first three weeks of the month were wintry in the state. The end of the
month, not so much.

After a very wintry November in Vermont, December brought more of the same, making us think we are going to have a long, long, hard winter.  Then, suddenly, right before Christmas, everything changed and winter ended, sort of, for now.

Before I get into my December in review, a program note: I'll get to a Vermont weather review for 2019, and the just-ended decade, within the coming days. It's New Year's Day. I'm starting slowly.

Through the first astronomical day of winter on December 21, Burlington was running about 2.8 degrees colder than normal.  Not really the coldest ever, but there was a noticeable chill for sure for the first three weeks of the month.

The weather then went rogue with the start of astronomical winter. Every day from December 22 through the end of the month got above freezing. In fact, Burlington was still just above freezing as the clock struck midnight and 2020 arrived overnight.

Elsewhere in Vermont, a cold start to December and the warm end made the month come out right around normal, temperature wise. Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Springfield all ended up the month at between 0.2 and 0.6 degrees on the warm side.

In northern Vermont, no big storms hit until the closing days of December, when that wintry mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain passed through.  That left precipitation near to below normal there, with the driest region being in the Champlain Valley. Burlington ha only 1.59 inches of precipitation for the month, which was 0.79 inches below normal.

Southern Vermont was bookended by larger storms. On December 1, the two southern counties of Vermont were socked by more than a foot of snow.  Also, that mixed precipitation mess leading up to New Year's Eve was much more dramatic than in the north.

In the far south of Vermont, ice accumulated enough to cause a bit of damage to trees.  The storm down there was also punctuated by lightning and thunder.

Dark December Made Darker With Persistent Clouds

The sun briefly broke through the clouds in Burlington
Vermont's intervale Thursday morning, creating this'
great lighting. But, as is typical this time of year,
the sun was snuffed out by the clouds within minutes. 

We all know the shortest days of the year are in December, near the winter solstice.

We also can see the darkness is made even worse by the fact it's usually very cloudy during the few hours the sun is actually above the horizon in December.

I guess this must be Dracula's favorite month.

There's reasons unique to the time of year that makes New England, and much of the rest of the Northeast and Great Lakes areas so cloudy.

Winter is of course stormier than the summer, so that adds clouds.

Another big factor is the fact that the Great Lakes, and most other bodies of water in southern Canada, the Midwest and Northeast haven't frozen yet.

Cold air blowing across these open bodies of water lift moisture from them, and they condense into clouds.

Downwind of the largest bodies of water, like the Great Lakes, this is the peak season for lake effect snows, too. The water is still relatively warm, the air is winter cold. The moisture picked up from the lakes in these situations can dump big snows lake effect snows.

We saw this yesterday, when western New York picked up as much as a foot and a half of snow, and a lake effect snow squall in Michigan caused a 30+ vehicle pileup that killed three people.

Another reason for the seasonal gloom is inversions. Dense, cold air often sinks into valleys at night. Slightly warmer air above forms a lid that traps moisture, resulting in a deck of drab overcast.

In the summer, the sun is strong enough to quickly break these inversions as its heat causes updrafts that break up the inversion, and the clouds.

In the winter, the sun is weak, and often not able to break up the inversions. So it stays cloudy. At least in the valleys. On these kinds of days, you might be in brilliant sunshine above the inversion on mountain peaks, while valley dwellers sulk under the gray overcast.

The good news/bad news for sun lovers is we're starting to get into the season of sharp blasts of Arctic air from Canada. These airmasses are quite dry, so the clouds often break up during these chilly spells.

But then, they are winter blasts, so it's hard to enjoy the rare treat of sunshine when it's below zero out.

Ah, winter.

Incredibly Ultra Weird Vermont And National December Weather Closes Out Wild 2015

A flower blooming in a West Rutland, Vermont
garden on Christmas Day, 2015. 

Something strange is going to happen outside my house in St. Albans, Vermont during this first week in January.

The strange thing is that the weather outside will be more or less normal.

I know that sentence doesn't make much sense. What would be so strange about average weather?

It's strange because we've had pretty much no normal weather lately. It's been off the charts.

I've never seen a month like December, 2015. Not locally, and not nationally.

Pretty much every state east of the oddly flooding Mississippi River, and pretty much every city east of the Mississippi had its hottest December on record.

First of all, it's extremely rare for such a wide geographical area to have a record hot month. It's even more odd -- extremely odd -- for some of those monthly heat records to be broken by such large margins.

On the relatively rare occasions when you have a new record for hottest or coldest month, that record is broken by a few tenths of a degree. It's pretty much unheard of to break the record by more than two degrees.

This time, many cities broke the monthly December record by several degrees.

VERMONT DECEMBER HEAT

Let't start here where I live, in Vermont, for the extreme records.

Burlington, Vermont's mean temperature in December, 2015 was 39.2 degrees, beating the old record hot month by 6.6 degrees. It's pretty rare to be merely 6.6 degrees warmer than average for a given month. Breaking a record by that margin was unthinkable until now.

December was a whopping 13.4 degrees warmer than normal in Burlington. Had December's weather happened in November instead, November still would have been one degree warmer than average.

For the first time since they started keeping records in Burlington, there were never any days that got below 10 degrees. (The closest it came was 16 degrees on the 28th) On 10 days, the temperature reached 50 degrees or more. Usually it takes a decade of Decembers to accumulate 10 days that reach 50 or more.

And of course there was that Christmas Eve in Burlington, in which the temperature reached 68 degrees, the hottest temperature on record for the entire month of December.  The month also had the latest first date of the season in which the temperature in Burlington never rose above freezing. That was on Dec. 28, ten days later than the old record set in 1998.

The month also had the fewest number of days that stayed below freezing during December. Just two.

Montpelier and St. Johnsbury, Vermont also broke their records for the hottest December on record by wide margins

December was soggy, too. Burlington had 4.44 inches of precipitation, double the average and good enough to make December, 2015 the 6th wettest on record.

Like I said, I don't know of any month that I can remember in which the weather was more extreme than in December, 2015.

THE NATION

Over the past 30 days, there have been 5,121 daily record highs at weather stations across the country, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center

Nights have been even weirder across the nation. Over the past 30 days, 6,441 daily records were set for highest minimum temperatures for any given day, says the NCDC.

Florida has been an extreme example of this. In Tampa, there were eight daily record high temperatures in a row. Fort Lauderdale had no cooler than normal days in December, and only 2 of the last 72 days were a bit cooler than average.

Shitless volleyball players in New York City,
Christmas Eve, 2015. 

Up until this year, the warmest overnight low for any December night on record in Key West, Florida, was 78 degrees. This year, for each of eight consecutive days starting December 23, that Key West warm overnight low record was tied or broken.

Further north, in New York City's Central Park, 11 days during December, 2015 reached 60 degrees or more. The previous record for most such December days was eight.

Many areas of the United States had record wet Decembers, too. These places include Portland, Oregon, with 15.24 inches for the month. Portland also  had its hottest year on record. , St. Louis, Missouri with 11.74 inches,  had its wettest December. Several cities in Georgia also had their wettest December since they began keeping track of such things.

I'm sure I've only hit just a few of the highlights in this year's extreme December across the country.

Let's see how 2016 turns out.

Retailers Are Mad You're Not Buying Winter Clothes Because It's Too Warm

The warm December weather has made people
not into buying winter clothes, possibly including
Ethan Renoe, the now famous dude who was interviewed
while jogging shirtless in balmy Chicago last weekend.
Photo from television station WGN  

Here's another effect of the oddly warm December weather that is embracing much of the nation:

Nobody's buying winter clothes, it seems.

Ad Age reports that retailers have lost $185 million in sales because the balmy weather doesn't have many people in the mood to buy coats, ski parkas, gloves, hats and the like.

AdAge said you'd think people might want to spend more on apparel, because they're saving so much on their heating bills. Why heat your house when it's 70 degrees outside?

But people are spending any extra cash they might have on increasingly expensive services like health care, housing and utilities.

You might need to buy a winter coat when the inevitable return to winter hits eventually, but if that's the case, you were smart to wait.

According to Ad Age:

"'The warmer than average weather continues to dampen demand for heavier winter items and has also resulted in a rash of discounting across a number of retailers which has, in turn, driven some volume -- but largel at the expense of total value,' wrote Neil Saunders, CEO of retail research firm Conlumino in a recent report."

Enjoy the sales, folks!

December Warmth Is Getting Insane

Flowers manage to bloom --Outdoors! -- in South Burlington,
Vermont on December 15, 2015. I've never seen anything
like this in northwestern Vermont. 

For the fourth morning in a week at my perch in northwestern Vermont, I awoke this morning to temperatures of near 50 degrees, instead of the teens I would expect this time of year.

Early morning weather is more like Memorial Day weekend and not the Christmas season.

Incredible warmth has bathed the eastern half of the nation for the better part of a week (or more) now, and there's no sign it's going to end soon.  

The temperatures were amazing in some areas Monday Want to enjoy a Buffalo lake effect blizzard? Not now. It was a record 71 degrees in Buffalo, New York Monday, the second highest reading seen in December in more than 120 years of data there.

Hot in Cleveland? You bet!  It was 70 degrees there on Saturday. Cleveland "cooled" down to a record high of 65 on Monday. Like many cities in the eastern half of the nation, Cleveland is so far running 10 degrees or so above normal for December.

The record warmth has hit various areas of the United States and Canada all month. It was in the 50s in Manitoba early in December which is pretty incredible for them.

Incredibly a few plants remain green and relatively
lush in my perennial flower garden in far northwestern Vermont.
This is December!! 

The warmth even created a new Internet sensation, when a TV reporter interviewed a hunky shirtless jogger in 60-degree December Chicago. The hunky jogger is now something of the symbol of this weird, warm December.

Here in Vermont, not a flake of snow has yet fallen in December, something I've never seen before. We've also haven't had one day yet this fall and winter when a high temperature failed to rise above freezing. That's also something I've never seen before.

Daily record highs and lows are always being broken, of course. But it's truly lopsided this month in favor of the warm side.

As of Tuesday morning, NOAA says 1,143 United States reporting stations have clocked record highs in the past seven days while only two reported record lows.

Love it or hate it, this state of affairs will continue for awhile. Yeah, the West will continue to cool off,  but medium and long range forecasts are really insisting the eastern half of the nation will stay warm for the next couple of weeks.

Lots of record highs will probably fall on and around Christmas from much of eastern Canada and the eastern half of the United States.

Places that usually get a white Christmas probably won't this year, but think about how much you're saving on your heating bill.  

The eight to fourteen day forecast through December 28
strongly suggest continued warm in the East. 

Why is this warmth happening?

I hate to use this word, since it's overused so much, but part of the blame or credit goes to the Polar Vortex.

To review, social media hysteria notwithstanding, the Polar Vortex is a totally normal pool of very cold air that usually hangs around somewhere near the North Pole, but can sneak further south and give mid latitudes one of those nasty winter cold waves.

Those sneaks to the south happen when the jet stream weakens and allows the Polar Vortex to slip south.

That's what happened on numerous occasions in the eastern United States in the winters of 2014 and 2015.

This December, a strong west to east jet stream is keeping the Polar Vortex bottled up way up by the North Pole, so it's hard for the cold air up there to head south toward us.

The current record strong El Nino is probably playing a role, too. The unusually warm patch of water in the eastern Pacific Ocean messes with weather patterns worldwide when it hits. Not always, but very often, strong El Ninos bring very warm early winters to eastern North America.

Global warming is NOT the main influence in this ridiculously hot December, but it probably plays a minor supporting role. It's probably bumping up temperatures a couple degrees more than they otherwise would be, enough maybe to break a few additional record highs.

Plus, there's some research to suggest that global warming might cause more frequent strong El Ninos, like the one we're having now.

For those of you who like winter, all is not lost yet. There's no reason to think the weather pattern can't change later in the winter. If it does January and February might just bring us the traditional cold and snow.

We Hope You Don't Mind Waiting For Winter

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center is
expecting toasty times for much of the
nation for at least the next six to 10 days
and probably beyond that. 

OK, there were a couple nasty winter storms in the Midwest over the past couple of weeks, and the northern tip of Maine was under a winter storm warning Thursday.

But in general, winter is lacking is we move into normally chilly December, and don't expect things to get too Arctic in most of the good ole US of A anytime soon.

Blame El Nino, that periodic spell of unusually warm water in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It's the strongest El Nino on record, and we're really starting to feel its effects.

A weather pattern is being established that is classic El Nino for North America.

A dip in the jet stream will bring storms to much of the West Coast, mild Pacific air is flooding west to east across the nation, and a northward bulge in the jet stream over the middle and eastern part of the country, along with much of southern Canada, will enhance the warmth.

Global warming is probably playing a bit of a role in this, too,  but of course we can't credit or blame the warmth solely on climate change.

In the eastern half of the country, it's looking as if there will be little, if any chilly air through midmonth at least.

Plus the long range computer generated forecasts extending to the middle of the month are in remarkable agreement. This time of year, there's often conflicting predictions among the models.

The National Weather Service's six to 10 day forecast issued Thursday calls for above normal temperatures nationwide, except near normal on the West Coast and colder than normal in Alaska.

The eight to 14 day forecast features the appearance of some cooler than normal temperatures in the western third of the nation, as a dip in the jet stream establishes itself there as a storminess keeps coming in from the Pacific. But the rest of the nation is forecast to stay warm during that period.

There are weather pundits are saying that some areas, most likely the upper Midwest, southern Canada, especially around Manitoba, Ontario and maybe western Quebec, and possibly northern New England in the United States, could have its warmest December on record, or close to it, anyway.

I personally don't see a reason to suspect these pundits and meteorologists and climate geeks are wrong.

Another nice thing about this pattern is it brings wetness to parched California. Over the next week, moderate to heavy rain will hit the northern third to half of Cailifornia, with beneficial snows in the Sierra Nevada.

Signs point to maybe some rain sneaking into southern California in the coming weeks.

Despite the warmth, the weather pattern does suggest most of the country could start to turn rather stormy as the month progressses. That means potential bouts of heavy rain, a few bouts of dangerous mixed precipitation and wet snow in the north, and the risk of severe weather in the Southeast.

It's too early to say when, or if, any particular storm would cause these problems.

A few people are calling this potentially the year without a winter, but I definitely wouldn't go that far. There will be cold waves and snow for sure.

Also, if this shapes up like past mega-El Ninos, the first part of winter is the warmest, and the second half of winter cools off some I suspect January and February won't be as extremely warm as December is shaping up to be.

(Somewhat) Rare December Tornadoes in Southern Plains Sunday

Small tornado in Oklahoma Sunday. Photo via
Twitter by @wxmstr24  

The same storm system that produced a somewhat rare tornado in Los Angeles Friday stayed true to form and produced somewhat rare, for December anyway, in Oklahoma and Kansas.

Those two states are routinely hammered by tornadoes in the spring and early summer.

But in December, tornadoes there are infrequent. Of course, tornadoes are fairly uncommon in the entire nation during the Christmas season anyway, but they do happen.

A tornado near Harper, Kansas Sunday marked only the eight time a twister has been seen anywhere in Kansas during December since 1950.

Television station KAKE reported no damage or injuries from the Harper tornado. It was the first December tornado to touch down in Kansas in 12 years.

Tornado sirens went off in the Oklahoma City metro area at one point Sunday, but nothing touched down in the city, though there was  a weak tornado on the ground briefly in northeastern Oklahoma.

The storm system is unlikely to spawn more tornadoes, but is spreading dangerous winter weather in the form of snow, sleet and freezing rain in the Dakotas, parts of Nebraska and in Minnesota.

Here's a video of the menacing looking Harper, Kansas, tornado:

This Cold December Bucks A Trend Of Toasty Decembers

No doubt it was frigid in northern New England this Tuesday morning. One of the "warm" spots was Burlington, Vermont, which clocked in with a temperature of 9 below, just one degree warmer than the record for the date.

Thick layer of ice on my truck windshield
this morning at a temperature of 11 below.  

Elsewhere, it was as bone chilling as it gets. It reached 32 below in Island Pond, Vermont and 30 below in Canaan, Vermont. There were lots of reports of readings in the 20s below in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

As of yesterday, half way through the month, the average temperature this December was averaging 3.4 degrees below normal. Unless there's a huge turnaround in temperatures, this will go down as one of the coldest Decembers in years.

Not that there's much competition. The past couple of decades has brought a series of abnormally warm Decembers to Vermont. Six of the top 10 warmest Decembers on record have occurred since 1996. This is in a record book that goes back to the 1880s.

I found only two cooler than normal Decembers in Burlington in the past 23 years. And the two cool Decembers were only a little below normal.

So not only is it cold this December, we're not used to such early season cold, either.

This week, it will warm up, sort of. Of course it really can't get much colder. Some small storms will blow by, with one this afternoon and evening bringing a dusting to far northern parts of Vermont and New Hampshire, with several inches in the southern reaches of those states.

Something else is coming along Friday, along with a quick squirt of warm air which will bring temperatures above freezing for a day or so. By that I mean upper 30s, so it won't exactly be tropical out there.

Then temperatures will drift downward again, but I don't think we'll see 20s and 30s below again for a couple weeks at least. Or we could hope, anyway.