NOAA: “North American snow cover for April 2010 was the smallest on record.” Go figure!
"The anomaly was the largest of any of the 520 months on record."
May 8, 2010
Where did all the snow go?
I mean, it was here just a minute ago, uber-fodder for the anti-science crowd (see Was the “Blizzard of 2009? a “global warming type” of record snowfall — or an opportunity for the media to blow the extreme weather story (again)? and Massive moisture-driven extreme precipitation during warmest winter in the satellite record — and the deniers say it disproves (!) climate science).
Sure the global cooling myth died a while ago, and we saw the Hottest March and hottest Jan-Feb-March on record. And sure the Weather Channel asked, “July in April?” because “in the seven-day period from March 29 through April 4, over 1100 daily record highs were either tied or broken in the nation!” But that’s all just a big coincidence, no?
Anyway, even though the record snow storms made headlines around the country for weeks, the amazing factoids headlined above were buried in the monthly “State of the Climate” report from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, under the category “Other Items of Note”:
According to the Rutgers Snow Lab, North American snow cover for April 2010 was the smallest on record (since 1966). Moreover, the anomaly was the largest of any of the 520 months on record.
So I thought I would note it.
UPDATE: As I note in the comments, the most important things are the long-term trends. But the blow-out, record-busters are important, too, especially ones that occur over large areas. For an analysis of the trends, see Tamino here.
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