Past IEM Features tagged: month
Room to the Downside
13 Oct 2015 05:35 AMThe featured chart displays the temperature range between the warmest high and coldest low for October for Ames. The bar to date is highlighted in red for this year. Of course, there is plenty of days left in October and the chart would indicate that there is plenty of room to the downside for lower temperatures yet this month. In fact, the average coldest low is 23 degrees which is a far cry from the current low of 45. The forecast for this week does have much colder weather predicted with our best chance to date of a freeze arriving by the end of the week.
Voting:
Good: 9
Bad: 5
Abstain: 3
Tags: month range
Besting the Month in One Day
03 Feb 2015 05:40 AMThe initial rainfall and subsequent liquid equivalent snowfall produced significant totals of precipitation for this time of the year. For Des Moines, the daily total on Jan 31st was greater than the total for all other days for that month. The featured chart presents the frequency of a given month having at least one half of its precipitation total fall in one day. November easily wins the competition with over half of the years meeting this criterion.
Voting:
Good: 14
Bad: 4
Abstain: 2
Tags: month
Above 50 in December
17 Dec 2014 05:39 AMThe stretch of warm weather this past weekend was rather remarkable for December. For the Des Moines Airport, the temperature stayed at or above 50 degrees for just over 2 straight days. The featured chart displays the longest consecutive stretches of time in December that the temperature was at or above 50 degrees. According to this analysis based on IEM archives, this was the longest such streak for Des Moines in December. What makes it even more remarkable is that this followed the longest streak below 32 degrees in November, which was just last month! You can generate plots like this for other sites in the country and for a threshold and month of your choice.
Voting:
Good: 12
Bad: 7
Abstain: 4
Tags: streak month
Scenarios for December
10 Dec 2014 05:39 AMAfter a very cold November, there is a chance that this December ends up being warmer than last month. An IEM feature last week showed that this situation (December warmer than November) has happened a few times in the past. This featured image looks at the combination of this year's data along with each previous December in the past appended onto this year's timeseries to effectively provide possible scenarios. When combining previous years and this year, 15% of these scenarios would lead to an average temperature warmer than last month. The forecast has some significant warmth forecasted going into the weekend.
Voting:
Good: 12
Bad: 2
Abstain: 3
Tags: month
One month warmer than another
05 Dec 2014 05:45 AMThere is a chance that this December could be warmer than November as measured by average high and low temperature. The featured chart displays the frequency of one month being warmer than another month for a given calendar year for Des Moines. For combinations with less than ten occurrences, the most recent year is displayed in the grid cell as well. The first row down in the far upper right of the plot shows the combination of having a warmer December than November. It has only happened twice since 1893 with the most recent year being 1959.
Voting:
Good: 27
Bad: 15
Abstain: 16
Tags: month
Relatively warmest month on record
01 Apr 2012 08:25 PMOur recently finished month of March has rewritten the record books in the Upper Midwest and in some respects, was relatively warmer than the iconic months during the dust bowl era! The featured chart presents the monthly record temperatures for Des Moines. The top chart presents the record temperature along with the year it occurred and the sigma departure the value was from current day average. The bottom chart presents the amount the current record is warmer than the second warmest month on record. The value of 3.5 sigma is shown for March 2012, which is larger than any of the other months. The sigma value represents how far the observation is away from the mean distribution of climatology. It provides a simple, but not complete, means to compare different months of the year. Regardless of that comparison, the bottom chart shows another exceptional aspect by besting the previous record by over four degrees! In this regard, this month is the most exceptionally warmest as well! Amazing to think about what we just experienced in the context of climatology for Iowa!
Voting:
Good: 30
Bad: 9
Tags: march month climate