TheClimateChanger

Thanks, Don. I agree there's a UHI component as well, but it's not impacting the trends. Whereas Phoenix has warmed at about .6F/decade since 1896, NCEI has the State of Arizona warming at about a third of that rate (0.2F/decade), so it's not like they are just using Phoenix numbers to calculate the official trends and departures. By the way, Death Valley - with a population of, checks notes, zero - has 4. But really 6, as the numbers for November & December in 1913 & 1914 are clearly erroneous. The huge surpluses were driven by implausibly high temperatures with impossibly small diurnal ranges that make zero sense in winter in Death Valley. Ignoring those months, it's 6 of 12.

Some food for thought:

Some good news. Hopefully, with lake ice coverage well below historical averages, we'll see somewhat less of a lake influence on spring temperatures this year. *Fingers crossed*

Asterisk because I think the snowfall total was a little inflated, but still very impressive.

Do you know when the last day was where the US as a whole was below the 1991-2020 average? It seems like it's been weeks.

We did it!

Something to look out for as we head into the warm season. CONUS PDSI third lowest on record as of end of February!

Don, it's CLEARLY urban heat island effect. That's why the 10 warmest years at Death Valley (pop: 0) are 2022, 2021, 2025, 2018, 2017, 2024, 2020, 2014, 2012, and 2016. Note the handful of older years are all missing months, mostly in the cold part of the year. It's actually pretty wild that recent years are as warm as those years that have no data for one or more winter months.

Record highs set at Chicago & Rockford today.

Snowiest EVER! This undersells the departure since the 1981-2010 normal was 67.2.