Damon: Hottest year coming to USA?

Published On: Nov 29 2012 11:03:53 AM CST

There's no doubt about it, 2012 will go down in the record books, or pretty close to it, for being the hottest yet, unless something incredible happens in the next 30 days. What would that be? We would need to see a major cold front move in and stay for just about all of December.

Weather graphics show the temperature departure from normal. The line starts high and then gradually descends as the year goes on, occasionally spiking and dropping. What is going on here? It's common to see the lines have rapid movement early in the year since it doesn't take much in January to send our monthly stats out of wack. If you see a January heat wave last for a week or two, then it's going to impact the stats in a big way since you do not have much else to compare the year to. In this case, January started out warm with the occasional cool downs, but for the most part, it was more warm then it was cool.

February temperatures were still warm, but a tad closer to normal than January. However the warmth returned for March and since then the air across the U. S. has had a difficult time cooling down.

It led to the drought and summer heat wave lead to many areas across The Central Plains seeing record warmth. And yes, here in Oklahoma, we felt that heat.

Eighteen 100 degree-plus days in a row occurred in July and into the beginning of August. And even the one thing that felt like it would be so tough to do in OKC, reach 113. This tied the all time hottest temperature on record for Oklahoma City.

Fortunately we had some good news for October which was a drop in temperatures and for the first time in over a year, a month where below normal temperatures were reported statewide.

However, that month was a one-time deal as November has seen temperatures nearly 2.5 degrees above normal.

So, what does that mean for December? As a meteorologist, if something keeps happening, then you forecast it to keep happening until something changes. In this case, we're expecting that the overall temperature will remain above normal. Stay tuned.

- Damon Lane


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