FOR RELEASE: Dec. 22, 1998
Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander, Jr. Office: (607) 255-3290 E-Mail: [email protected] Compuserve: Bill Steele, 72650,565 http://www.news.cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. -- With nine days left in the year, it appears probable that 1998 will be the Northeast's warmest year since records began in 1895, according to the climatologists at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University.
Up to now, 1953 was region's the warmest year on record with an average temperature of 49.5 degrees Fahrenheit. So far this year, the Northeast's temperature averages 50.2 degrees, just seven-tenths of a degree above the 1953 mark. Through Dec. 21, the region's temperatures in the month of December averaged 38.6 degrees, or 11.1 degrees above normal, according to Keith Eggleston, senior climatologist at the center.
Eggleston gives 1998 "a 96 percent chance" of breaking the 45-year-old record for the warmest year in the 12-state Northeast region. "Temperatures for the rest of the month now need to average 10.6 degrees or more below normal for us not to break the record," he says.
He notes that temperatures this cold during the final two weeks of December occur only once every 25 years on average, and that has happened only twice in recent history, in 1983 and 1989. But, an Arctic blast is headed toward the Northeast and will inevitably lower the month's current average temperature. "I don't think the cold front will kill our chances of breaking the temperature record for the year, although this front is going to bring below-normal temperatures," says Eggleston. "It's not going to be cold enough, long enough."
The year came in like a lamb. January averaged 7.8 degrees warmer than normal (based on a 30-year average) , warm enough to make it the ninth warmest January on record. Next, the warmest February on record in the Northeast came with an average temperature departure of 8 degrees above normal. In all, nine out of the first 11 months were warmer than normal. Three months -- January, February and May -- were among the top 10 warmest on record for those
specific months. May's average temperature was 4.6 degrees above normal, making it the sixth warmest May in the region. Only June and July were cooler than normal. June averaged 0.1 degrees cooler than normal, and July followed at 0.4 degrees cooler than normal.
The Northeast's warmest December occurred in 1923, when the average temperature was 35.5 degrees. Through Dec. 21 this year, the average temperature was 3.1 degrees above the record.
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