The U.S. winter of 2023-24 is now the warmest winter season on record, per NOAA climatic data going back 130 years. Rod Bain reports.

PARTICIPANT: Rod Bain and USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey

Transcript

The warmest winter in the United States on record.

Winter rankings, the United States, specifically the lower 48, it's coming in with its warmest winter on record.

These records go back 130 years all the way to 1895.

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says those National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration average temperature numbers for this winter continue a recent trend.

If you look at those 130 years, now all 13 of the warmest winters have occurred since 1990, just in the last 35 years.

Rippey adds the gap between the top two all-time winter average high temperatures are not close from a climate perspective.

The winter US average temperature of 37.6 degrees Fahrenheit was almost 5.4 degrees above what the average was during the 20th century.

And that broke the previous record, which had been set in 2015, 16 by more than eight tenths of a degree in the realm of climate, not even close to the previous record.

And number three now dropping to the list 1999, 2000.

The above normal warmth this winter occurred.

Despite a very sharp cold outbreak that occurred for about 10 days in the middle of February.

But other than that 10 days, the other 90 plus days of winter, it was extremely warm, especially across the northern and the central United States.

With December 2023 reaching an all-time average record high temperature for that month.

And despite the cold outbreak, February 2024, coming in as the third warmest February on record.

The state by state breakdown further reflects just how warm on average the winter of 2023, 24 has been.

It was the warmest winter on record for eight individual states and that included Iowa plus seven Canadian border states extending from North Dakota to Vermont.

We also saw impressively top ten winter rankings in almost all other US states.

The only exceptions were New Mexico, Arizona and Washington in the West.

And then a handful of southeastern states extending from Arkansas, Louisiana, eastward to the Atlantic coast to the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.

So other than that little block of states in the southeast and New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, it was one of the ten warmest winters on record.

A further example of the magnitude of the above normal high temperatures this winter.

The coolest state was Alabama and even there, it was the 43rd warmest winter on record which puts it in the top one third of the all-time rankings.

Rod Bain reporting for the US Department of Agriculture in Washington,