Thread: 2014: San Diego's warmest year on record

2014: San Diego's warmest year on record

Only late December provided a departure from our long stretch of dryness and unusually high temps

By Robert Krier10:05 P.M.JAN. 2, 2015

People who saw ice on their roofs and snow on nearby hills this week might find it hard to believe, but San Diego just finished its warmest year on record.

And despite a December that dumped about three times the month’s usual amount of rain, the city has just concluded its third straight year of drought.

Has something shifted? If it has, will it last?

Those are key questions for a region that’s been overbaked and underwatered. It’s too early to tell, but there are encouraging signs that the record-breaking heat and extended dryness of 2014 could be fading in the rearview mirror.

El Niño, which has been dragging its feet for half a year, appears poised to step it up soon. And large-scale atmospheric patterns that blocked storms from reaching California for most of 2014 have shifted. That has kicked open a jammed storm door, at least temporarily, and allowed colder air to reach Southern California.

“To me, it looks like we’ll get more activity than last year.

But that’s not hard to do, considering we had almost no activity last year,” said Ivory Small, science officer at the National Weather Service office in Rancho Bernardo.

SWARM OF WARMTH

Unlike 2015, which San Diego rang in with a blast of very cold air, 2014 started with very warm and dry air.

Last January was 4.2 degrees warmer than normal — and San Diego’s second warmest January on record. Only 0.01 of an inch of rain fell during the month, which is usually the city’s second wettest and averages 1.98 inches.

The dry heat just kept on coming. Every month of 2014 was at least two degrees warmer than the climatological average. April was the third warmest on record and May was the warmest. October and November were both the second warmest. December, despite a very cold final week, cracked the top 10 warmest list.

Temperature records in town go back to 1872.

The average temperature for 2014, as measured at Lindbergh Field, San Diego’s official weather station, was 67.6 degrees. The previous warmest year was 1984, which averaged 67.2.

El Cajon, Chula Vista, Palomar Mountain and Vista also had their hottest year on record in 2014.

Broken down by days, San Diego had 19 days in 2014 that were cooler than normal. Four days were exactly normal, and 342 were warmer than normal.

The city hit 90 degrees or higher 14 times in 2014. The annual average in the city is 1.3 days, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

“We usually get periods of heat,” Small said. “But this year, we’d get hot, then a brief break, and then it kept coming back. It was weird.”

Meanwhile, the rain stayed away. Every month through November — except August, which averages a meager 0.02 of an inch and got 0.08 in 2014 — was drier than normal. From Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, only 3.27 inches of rain fell at Lindbergh Field. Normal for the first 11 months of the year is 8.81 inches.

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http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/...heat-rainfall/

2014 was warmest year on record in Phoenix

Amazing views of snow near the Superstition Mountains

Parker Leavitt and Jim Walsh, The Republicazcentral.com9:15 a.m. MST January 2, 2015


(Photo: Michael Schennum / The Republic)

Despite ending on a frigid note, with snow falling on the Valley's fringes, 2014 will enter the books as the warmest year on record in Phoenix, according to the National Weather Service.

The average temperature topped 77 degrees for the first time in Phoenix last year, breaking the previous record of 76.9 degrees set in 1989.

Only two months — August and September — did not reach above-average temperatures in 2014, and several months rank among the 10 warmest in Phoenix history, according to the Weather Service.

The jump in average temperature did not necessarily translate into a hotter summer, though. The number of 100-degree days remained consistent with the past 20 years in Phoenix, and there were actually fewer days with temperatures of 110 degrees or hotter.

Phoenix also broke a record for the warmest average low temperature in 2014 at 65.4 degrees, a full degree warmer than the previous record in 2003. The average high of 88.9 degrees in 2014 ranked as the second warmest on record, behind 1989, according to the Weather Service.

Here's a look at the five warmest years on record in Phoenix:
1. 2014: 77.1 degrees.
2. 1989: 76.9 degrees.
3. 2012: 76.7 degrees.
4. 2007: 76.4 degrees.
5. 2003: 76.3 degrees.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/...cord/21169747/