Warmest April on record for the globe
The globe recorded its warmest April since record keeping began in 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Climatic Data Center. The April temperature anomaly of 0.76°C (1.37°F) beat the previous record set in 1998 by 0.05°C. The is the second consecutive warmest month on record. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies also rated April 2010 as the warmest April on record. The year-to-date period, January - April, is the warmest such period on record, according to both NOAA and NASA. NASA also rated the last 12-month period (May 2009 - April 2010) as the warmest 12-month period on record. April 2010 global ocean temperatures were the warmest on record for the 2nd month in a row, while land temperatures were the 3rd warmest. Global satellite-measured temperatures for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were the 2nd warmest on record in April, according to both the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) groups.
For those interested, NCDC has a page of notable weather highlights from April 2010.
Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for April 2010. Image credit: NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.
A very warm April for the U.S.
For the contiguous U.S., it was the 14th warmest April in the 116-year record, according to the National Climatic Data Center. California was the coldest state, relative to average, with its 12th coldest April. No state had a top-ten coldest April. Five states had their warmest April on record--Illinois, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Sixteen other states had top-ten warmest Aprils.
U.S. precipitation and drought
For the contiguous U.S., April 2010 ranked as the 36th driest in the 116-year record. Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts all had top-ten driest Aprils. Only Oregon had a top-ten wet April. At the end of April, 2% of the contiguous United States was in severe-to-exceptional drought. This is the lowest April drought footprint in the U.S. in the past ten years.
El Niño is over
El Niño rapidly weakened during late April and early May, with sea surface temperatures over the tropical Eastern Pacific in the area 5°N - 5°S, 120°W - 170°W, also called the "Niña 3.4 region", falling 0.65°C in just one month. This brought SSTs into "neutral" conditions, at 0.18°C above average, which is well below the 0.5°C above average threshold to be considered an El Niño, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The speed of the collapse of El Niño makes it likely that a La Niña event is on its way this summer. This is what happened during the last strong El Niño event in 1998--El Niño collapsed dramatically in May, and a strong La Niña event developed by hurricane season. Ten of the 23 El Niño models (updated as of May 19) are predicting La Niña conditions for hurricane season. The demise of El Niño, coupled with sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic that are currently at record levels, have prompted two major hurricane forecasting groups (tropicalstormrisk.com and Colorado State University) to predict a significantly above average 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. Over the full 160-year period we have records of Atlantic hurricanes, La Niña years have typically had more hurricanes, and more strong hurricanes, compared to neutral years. However, since 1995, there hasn't been any difference between neutral and La Niña years in terms of hurricane activity.
April sea ice extent in the Arctic near average in April
April 2010 Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent was the 15th lowest (or 18th greatest) since satellite measurements began in 1979, so was near average. However, the ice volume anomaly was at a record low at the end of April, according to University of Washington Polar Ice Center. Wind patterns this spring have pushed a great deal of the oldest ice out of the Arctic, leaving mostly thin ice that is vulnerable to rapid melting. The first two weeks of May have seen unusual warmth in the Arctic, leading to rapid melting, and ice extent as of May 20 was the 2nd lowest on record, behind 2006, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
I'll be back this afternoon to talk about the oil spill and the tropics. I'm working on a post about how a hurricane passing over the spill might affect the oil. I'll post it if I have time to finish it.
Jeff Masters
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Will there be a special outlook for 90L?
The GFS isn't a person lol.
I don't know the details of all the changes, but we'll see. A lot of its problems can't simply be fixed by minor tweaks. There are problems in the US models from the ground up. I hope it's better after this upgrade though.
12z models...still coming in.
He seems to be voicing what most of us are thinking here, about the concern for a rather nasty warm-core storm making a run at the SE coast and turning west and southwest. I am proud that we were actually ahead of him on catching on to this one.
It seems we were both way too late on the Invest designation predictions lol. I guess the NHC wants to start taking this seriously well in advance, even before it starts going warm-core.
Check it out in a few days....
SPECIAL FEATURE...
A 1014 MB LOW PRESSURE CENTER IS IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN NEAR
27N72W. A TROUGH EXTENDS FROM THE LOW CENTER TO 30N70W. ANOTHER
TROUGH EXTENDS FROM THE LOW CENTER TO THE BAHAMAS NEAR 22N74W.
MODEL RUNS HAVE BEEN DONE FOR THIS FEATURE...AND THE EARLIEST
SHORT-TERM FORECAST INDICATES THAT IT WILL STAY IN THE ATLANTIC
OCEAN FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS AT MORE OR LESS ITS SAME PRESSURE
VALUE. SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS COVER THE AREA FROM 24N TO 27N
BETWEEN 69W AND 71W. BROKEN TO OVERCAST MULTILAYERED CLOUDS AND
OTHER POSSIBLE SHOWERS ARE TO THE SOUTH OF 24N BETWEEN 70W AND
80W...FROM 20N BEYOND 32N BETWEEN 60W AND 70W...AND TO THE NORTH
OF 27N BETWEEN 53W AND 60W
Also has a broad area of low pressure moving over Hispaniola.
CBS LIVE FEED NOLA NOON NEWS WWL-TV
I suspect a lot of people don't know yet,, I just got home from work myself ;)
I didn't even know when I wrote my blog update this morning. I didn't even think to check....thought they'd wait until it started showing warm-core characteristics.
Maybe, I just think it was far too soon to declare it. Right now there's not even a well defined naked swirl anymore because it's pulling away from the convection.
Well if that was a run based on an initialization of an already mature Ike, then that isn't fixing its biggest problems, but I look forward to the improvements that they did make.
edit: From 1970-2005 (if memory serves, 2005-2009 as well) only one storm has done so:
Link
second edit: back to 1945 also
Link
Link
If you go back in time to 84 hours you can see the strong low north of Colombia beginning to develop.
*Sorry that I didn't post images, there is something wrong with the website that doesn't allow me to post anything from there.
Well that's nice. It will be interesting to see the model skill reports after this year is over with all the upgrades to most of them. I fully expect the Euro to remain on top though.
12Z HWRF is currently running.
I hope you know thats 90Q from the South Atlantic - March.
The HWRF got updated too lol.
Model Link
He knows, it was lil inside retort between he and I.
Relax..enjoy a FRESCA.
Plus, he went to Bed.. its Nitey nite time in the Land Down under.
Where women glow and Men Plunder..
HOUR: .0 LONG: -72.19 LAT: 27.09 MIN PRESS (hPa): 1013.61 MAX SURF WIND (KNOTS): 28.47
HOUR: 6.0 LONG: -72.87 LAT: 26.89 MIN PRESS (hPa): 1013.13 MAX SURF WIND (KNOTS): 25.59
Hmmmm...interesting storm.
But SST was probably another than now
CMC 12Z
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