Cold is Not the New Normal

There will be a lot to write about once April is in the books, but for now here's something to chew on. April is going to finish up as the coldest in Fairbanks since 1924. Following on the cold December and the cold January 2012, I thought I'd look at thermally "extreme" months in recent years.

In the past decade, 2003-2012 plus the first four months of this year, here are the number of times a given month was in either the top ten warmest or coldest in the Weather Bureau/NWS era (since 1930). So red is the "warm month" count and blue the "cold month" count.

The total count is: since January 2003, 21 month have been in the warmest ten and 10 have been in the coldest ten. Interestingly, only two months in the warm season (April 2013 and September 2004) have been in the cold column. while 11 months have been in the warmest ten.