It’s warm, but just how warm?

2019 tops the temperature scale

Our serene, warming world

After a warm and foggy week, Mother Nature promises cooler temps next week (watch out for storms Thursday), but even those cooler numbers won’t be extreme.

In fact, we’ve had a relatively warm winter so far, which seems to be the new normal. If you consider our winter months of December, January and February, the last time we had a record low in these months was 2009 (Dec. 5 dropped to 26F). In this young century, we’ve had zero January record lows and two in February 2002.

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NOAA came out with their 2019 Global Climate Assessment report and the name alone is sleepy. Globally, the year was the second warmest on record and records start in 1880, so the past 140 years. Let me show you this warming graphic and then I’ll tick off the highlights:

Last year across the globe: WARM

Here we go for 2019 temps:

North America: 14th warmest year on record

Alaska: Warmest year on record

South America and Europe: Second warmest year on record

Africa and Asia: Third warmest year on record

New Zealand: Fourth warmest year on record

Australia: Warmest year on record, and look at the drought/fires of late

The tropics were all on fire and while we suffered through Imelda, the Bahamas met Dorian head-on.

You can read the entire report here. One last graphic showing the warming trend since records began:

Warmer and warmer especially since 1980

Need a fun site to explore this weekend? Try the Magnet Lab! Amazing what magnets do in our world!

Enjoy a cooler weekend (at least by Sunday) and good luck to all the marathon runners!

Frank

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About the Author:

KPRC 2's chief meteorologist with four decades of experience forecasting Houston's weather.