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Mild October Sees Variable Rainfall, Changing Leaves

All Climate Blog Posts

Dec 17, 2014

A Coastal White Christmas: Revisiting the 1989 Winter Storm

For the North Carolina coast, dreams of a white Christmas came true 25 years ago in 1989. An ideal setup with cold air in place, a strong offshore low, and timing just before the holiday meant snow on the ground on Christmas for the first time on record in some parts of eastern North Carolina.…

Dec 9, 2014

CCMMS Interns Investigate Pumpkin Growth Potential

This fall, the State Climate Office invited three students from Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School to learn more about weather and climate and complete a research project similar to those done by SCO’s scientists. The three students were eight-graders Ribhi Triesh and Savannah Mosley, and sixth-grader Zach Flatt. The students met every Monday for two…

Dec 4, 2014

Are Those Values Real?!

Sometimes, looking at climate data on a daily basis always brings new and unexpected results. One such result occurred earlier in November when relative humidity (RH) values at five of our western NC ECONet stations were below 10%. To put this in perspective, on the driest days in North Carolina, RH values will rarely dip…

Dec 1, 2014

November Wraps Up a Cool Fall for NC

November saw overall cool temperatures with wet weather late in the month for North Carolina. Record Lows Highlight a Cool Month Almost from start to finish, cooler weather ruled the past month in North Carolina. Most stations saw average temperatures 3° to 7°F below normal, and the statewide average says it was our 4th-coolest November…

Nov 24, 2014

The SCOfficial 2014-15 Winter Outlook

This is the final part of our 2014-15 winter outlook series, featuring our office’s official forecast for the coming winter. Before we get to our outlook, let’s recap the current state of the atmosphere, specifically in the Pacific Ocean and factors that could shape the polar jet stream. We will also look some past years…

Nov 21, 2014

From Top to Bottom, Global Conditions May Shape Winter’s Polar Jet Stream

This is the third part of our 2014-15 winter outlook series. Following our discussion of ENSO and its possible impacts, today we cover two other global climate patterns with connections to our winter weather. The Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation (AO and NAO, respectively) are two of the most important large-scale climate patterns that…

Nov 19, 2014

Is El Niño a Go? The Latest on Pacific Patterns

This is the second part of our 2014-15 winter outlook series. We previously covered forecasts from folklore, and today we dip into the Pacific to see how ENSO could affect our winter. Perhaps the most commonly cited environmental predictor in seasonal outlooks is ENSO, or the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. ENSO describes the natural, cyclical change…

Nov 17, 2014

Famous Folklore Suggests a Cool Winter Awaits

Today we begin our four-part winter outlook series with the forecasts from some well-known bits of folklore. From bugs to plants to sun spots, many natural phenomena have become the basis for winter weather forecasts. While our own scientific knowledge of the atmosphere tends to give us a more confident forecast for the coming seasons,…

Nov 3, 2014

Mild October Sees Variable Rainfall, Changing Leaves

October saw several signs of fall across the state. Statewide Temperatures Slightly Above Normal Our October saw a mix of warm days with highs in the 80s and milder stretches of fall-like weather. Those averaged out to give a warmer-than-normal month, ranking as the 47th-warmest October in 120 years of record. Most locations had average…