4/7/13 Record Cold March

For those living along the western coast of the U.S. March was an overall warm month. Several cities in Washington, Nevada, and California broke record high temperatures; some, several days in a row. However, for the people who live in the southeastern states, they were bundling up, and wondering when Spring was going to arrive.

So why the extreme cold for the Southeast? Much of the blame can be attributed to a strongly negative Arctic Oscillation. The Arctic Oscillation basically determines how the warm and cold weather patterns get distributed. When you have atmospheric pressure changes at both the polar and middle latitudes, that pattern usually allows for colder air to come farther southward than it normally would in springtime.

So just how cold was it? Atlanta had it’s 17^th coldest March on record with an average temperature of 49.1°F. That means March was colder than both December (51.1ºF) and January (49.9ºF)!  Another strange anomally; Birmingham, Alabama had its 10^th coldest March on record at 49.7°F, but just last year, they had their WARMEST March on record at 65.5°F. What a difference a year makes! Here are some other cities that felt the chill:

Huntsville, Alabama had its 10^th coldest at 47.4°F

Knoxville, Tennessee had its 6^th coldest at 44.0°F

Macon, Georgia had its 7^th coldest March at 50.7°F

Tuscaloosa, Alabama had its 4^th coldest March at 51.5°F

Charlotte, North Carolina had its 8^th coldest March at 46.1°F

 

Sometimes it is hard to imagine that 50°F is cold, so lets put it into perspective. First, this is March, not January we’re talking about. With that in mind, at times Raleigh, North Carolina felt more like Philadelphia for much of March;  Asheville, North Caorlina felt more like New York City; and Atlanta felt more like Washington D.C. Would you like to see how your city fared? This link here will let you see what your city's temperatures were comparable to.

Sources: NWS, NOAA, SERCC