Beyond the Data Blog

Welcome to Beyond the Data. This week, we’ll talk a little bit about wildfire. Specifically, prairie fire. Before we do that, I hope you don’t mind if I take a second to process a couple of facts about March 2016. First, that the world’s land areas averaged 4.2°F warmer than the month’s 20th century average. Second, compared to March’s 1981-2010 “normal,” the Northern Hemisphere’s combined area of “missing” sea ice and snow cover would cover more than a tenth of the moon. (stunned silence) Whoa. Now let’s talk about the prairie In our previous entry, we visited a little bit about 2016’s very warm start across the United States, and the regional pockets of very dry conditions amon…   Read article

The data are in, and it’s official: March was warm. And parts of the country were dry. And parts were really wet. And you can read all about it in the monthly State of the Climate report. Let’s go Beyond the Data for March, and hit on a few more complex items embedded within the basic statistics. Unprecedented widespread warmth If you were alive during March 2016, and I’m betting you were, you witnessed U.S. history. One stunning feature from the March 2016 temperature map was just how universally warm the month was. Every one of the 357 climate divisions across the contiguous United States and Alaska ended up - at least - in the “warmer than normal” category. That’s harder than …   Read article

Is El Niño the Marcia Brady of climate variability? No doubt that El Niño is the sexiest, most popular, and most studied aspect of climate variability. And we do continue to talk about El Niño events decades after they seem relevant, much like Marcia. Now that the U.S. has just finished its warmest winter on record, we naturally ask ourselves just how influential the strong El Niño was.  But how did other factors in the earth’s climate system contribute to the record-breaking season?  How did Greg and Bobby and Cindy—or even Jan—influence the hit TV show from yesteryear?  Was the success of the show solely due to Marcia, and was our warmest winter on record solely a result …   Read article

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Most people in the East who remember historical snowstorms consider the March 1993 “Storm of the Century” to be the biggest snowstorm to ever affect that part of the country. It’s no wonder: 270 people were killed in the U.S., damages were in the neighborhood of $5.5 billion, every major airport on the east coast was shut down, and most interstates north of Atlanta were closed. Using our Regional Snowfall Index (RSI), the March 12-15, 1993, event had a raw score of 22.12, making it a Category 5 storm. Yet when we look at the ranking of all historical Northeast snowstorms, the “Storm of the Century” only finishes in second place. No way! How can that be? Trying to be objective about…   Read article