Nation's February Was Cold, But That Didn't Negate A Warm Winter

The extreme cold in February got all the headlines, but
overall for the winter as a whole, the nation was a bit warmer
than average. The south- central U.S. was cool, but that 
was more than offset by heat elsewhere, especially in 
California, the northern Plains and New England. 

The massive February cold wave in the nation's South and Midwest grabbed all the winter weather headlinesHowever, the rest of the winter was so toasty that overall, the United States winter 2020-21 was warmer than average.   

Overall, the period from December 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021 in the Lower 48 was 33.6 degrees, 1.4 above average and ranking in the warmest third of all winters since the 1890s.

Even in the areas hit hardeset by the February cold wave, where temperatures were the farthest below normal in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas, the winter overall was just very slightly cooler than average.

 It would have been a very warm winter if not for the historically cold middle two weeks of February.  Says NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information: 

"The average temperature across the contiguous U.S. last month was 30.6 degrees, 3.2 degrees below the 20th century average. It was the 19th coldest out of the past 127 years, and the coldest February since 1989."

In Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma, it was among the top 10 coldest Februaries on record. 

Even Alaska got into the cold act, having its chilliest February since 1999.

Those middle two weeks of February were so far below normal that it drove this historic chill. In the heart of the cold zone the first and final weeks of February were near or even a little above normal. 

At the peak of the cold wave, 62 cities hit all-time daily cold minimum temperatures and 69 all-time daily cold maximum temperature records were set, the NCEI reports.

With all those cold statistics, it's interesting to point out that national Februaries as cold as 2021 used to be more frequent. This was the coldest February in 32 years. But most of the other Februaries colder than this one were in the first half of the 20th century.  Frigid Februaries were pretty common back in the day.  Cold waves like this winter's are just more rare than they once were. 

It was quite a cold February in the middle of the nation,  as this
map shows, but it wasn't cold everywhere. Combine that with
a warm December and January, and winter overall for
the United States was on the mild side. 

So don't go around saying this February means climate change is canceled. It surely is not. 

Looking at other new data, drought continued to be a rising concern in much of the United States in February.  

Nearly half - 46/6 percent of the Lower 48 -  was in drought by the end of the month, up slightly from 45.8 percent at the beginning of the month. 

This is of particular concern in California, central Rockies and the southwestern United States. There is still the opportunity for more rain and snow in March and early April. 

However, the winter rainy season is coming close to ending with not much rain, and the long, dry spring, summer and autumn loom. 

Even here in Vermont, there's some drought, and rainfall continues to lag.  Short term, not much precipitation is in the forecast here, either. 

It'll be interesting to see the report on global temperatures for February when that comes out in a week or two. The United States and much of Russia were frigid, while large parts of Canada, Europe and Asia were warm. 

Still, almost all months in the past decade or so scored in the top 10 warmest globally and a large percentage were in the Top 5. 

I'm sure global February temperatures will end up warmer than normal, but I bet it will be out of the Top 10.  I'm interested in seeing how far below #10 we end up.