Ryan Snoddon - CBC Newfoundland & Labrador

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WARMEST DECEMBER ON RECORD

January 4, 2011 12:27 PM

Hey Folks,

Happy New Year! and welcome to January!

Well, I've been looking forward to digging into these numbers for weeks... and they are beyond bizarre. This Winter has started just like last Winter finished... WARM, WARM, WARM.

The blocking High over Greenland, The Negative NAO and Surface Ocean Temps are way above normal... it's like Deja Vu.

Across the Province this was officially the Warmest December on record. With some records dating back to the 1870's!!!

In Newfoundland this was either the lowest, or second lowest, amount of Snow ever recorded in the month of December.

Here are the record breaking numbers and a few more interesting stats....

ST. JOHN'S

For the Metro area, this past December was certainly a memorable one. The City finished 5.6 Above Normal... making this the warmest December on record. Here are the records that we set.

WARMEST MEAN TEMP: 3.4 (Old Record: 2.9 in 1969, Dec avg: -2.2)

LEAST SNOWFALL: 8.8 cm (Old Record: 9.4 cm in 1990, Dec avg: 61.3 cm)

Other notables from December: St. John's had 318 mm of Rain this month, that's the most since 329 mm of Rain back in December of 1909.

GANDER

The warmest December on record for Central Newfoundland... a whole 6.8 Above Normal. The records broken...

WARMEST MEAN TEMP: 2.5 (Old Record: 1.4, Dec avg: -4.3)

MOST RAINFALL: 237 mm (Old Record: 122.9 mm in 1957, Dec avg: 36 mm)

MOST PRECIP: 258.7 mm (Old Record: 210 mm in 1993, Dec avg: 114 mm)

Other notables from December: With just 21.3 cm of Snow, this was 2nd least amount of Snow ever to fall in Gander, in December. The previous record was 20.3 cm in 1952.

DEER LAKE

For the West Coast, this was also the warmest December on record. 7.7 Above Normal. Here are the record breakers...

WARMEST MEAN TEMP: 2.3 (Old Record: 0.7 in 1969, Dec avg: -5.4)

LEAST SNOWFALL: 24.6 cm (Tied Old Record of 24.6 cm in 1967, Dec avg: 96 cm)

Other notables from December: Out of 31 days in December... 28 days saw the temperatures rise above the freezing mark.

CARTWRIGHT

The Southern part of the Labrador Coast was over 9 degrees above normal this month. Records...

WARMEST MEAN TEMP: -0.2 (Old Record: -3.2 in 1961, Dec avg: -9.9)

Other notables from December: The average day time high in Cartwright for Dec is -6. This past month only saw 4 days where temps stayed below zero!

NAIN

I unfortunately, don't have any Precip numbers for Nain, however I do have temperatures. I can tell you that the North Coast of Labrador came in almost 10 degrees Above Normal.

WARMEST MEAN TEMP: -3.1 (Old Record: -7.2 in 1947, Dec avg: -12.8)

Other notables: 18 days out of 31, Nain had day time high temperatures rise above zero.

HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY

Inland Labrador was even warmer this past month, with HVGB coming in 11.6 Above Normal!!! That broke the old record by a long shot.

WARMEST MEAN TEMP: -2.3 (Old Record: -5.4 in 1961, Dec avg: -13.9)

Although this wasn't the least Snowy December (8.9 cm back in 1952) HVGB only had 38.4 cm, far short of the 78.3 cm you normally see. By the way, that December of 1952 was about 5 above normal, with a lack of Precip altogether being the big story. That month had just 1 mm of Rain, on top of that low Snow total.

LABRADOR CITY

I think one of the most interesting numbers of this entire month... isn't the 11-12 Above Normal... but the fact that the previous record was broken by 4.6!!!

WARMEST MEAN TEMP: -7.1 (Old Record: -11.7 in 1961, Dec avg: -18.6)

MOST RAINFALL: 30.4 mm (Old Record: 16.8 mm in 1982, Dec avg: 2.9 mm)

Labrador City/Wabush had 14 days this month, where the temperature high was above zero!

*I must give a huge thanks to Rodney Barney at the Gander Weather Office. He dug up all of the previous December Weather records, which saved me a few hours of digging!

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LOOKING AHEAD

I'm working on uploading my Winter Preview which aired on Here & Now last week... hopefully I'll get it uploaded on Wednesday. Tech issues today, that are waaaaay beyond my skill set. : )

Anyway until then, I can tell you that the very latest Environment Canada Seasonal Outlook came out this week and it hasn't changed from last month. January-February-March are still looking Above Normal for temperatures for all of NL. And most long range models I've looked at over the past few weeks are predicting the same thing.

It's going to be interesting Winter!

Ryan

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