December 2018 / Annual Summary

How's that for a crazy year?



And again with the bizarre precipitation disparity:



Note that the snowfall statistic for December is subject to (very slight) change. There was a tiny bit of snow on 31 Dec that has not yet been recorded, so it may end up as either a trace or a tiny measurable snowfall.

Month-by-month:

January: Another boring winter month. Cold and dry. A minimum of -24C on the 1st of the year, coldest since 2014 (and before that 1997).
February: Like January, but without even the minor excitement of the brief-but-intense cold snap. A complete snoozefest of a month.
March: See above.
April: This is where the year changes! Very nearly the best April possible in this climate, A+. 2nd coldest on record, 3 snowfall events, latest ice day on record, and even the warm days were beautiful.
May: A complete 180 from April: 2nd warmest on record! Only one day the entire month (21st) was below average temperatures, and by less than 1F at that. This month was also where we saw the beginnings of the summer drought. Storms began shattering into tiny pieces just before reaching the Missouri border, and so tiny areas would get local downpours. There was never a widespread rain event.
June: Similar conditions to May. Ironically, the coolest day of the entire summer was the solstice (max 21C). The drought continues.
July: The monotony of summer 2018 becomes apparent as May is repeated for a third time. The one non-boring event was the first 100F since 2013 on the 12th. There was some slight cooling toward the end of the month. The drought intensifies. Don't let the high precipitation statistics at the airport fool you - that's the one spot that ever seems to get hit.
August: The monotony continues. By the middle of the month, large areas of KC, including southern Platte County, are categorized under D4 "exceptional" drought. Temperatures are slightly above average.
September: Summer continues and the drought remains unmoved. After three consecutive highs of 94F, the 21st saw an abrupt drop to much more autumnal temperatures.
October: Is this April #2? Not as exceptional, but certainly notable. A massive storm began on the 6th that dropped nearly 250mm of rain in four days, abruptly ending the drought. The rest of the month remained mostly dry, but it was still enough to make it the 2nd-wettest on record. KC's earliest accumulating snowfall on record fell on the evening of the 14th, breaking a record that had stood since 1898. The rest of the month following the snow consisted of beautiful sunny autumn days with temperatures near average.
November: The first interesting wintry month (aside from April) since moving here. The coldest November on record, with six snow days (3 measurable, 3 trace) and a rare November blizzard on the 25th that helped make this November also the 2nd-snowiest on record.
December: All the exciting trends of October and November came to an abrupt stop as temperatures warmed and precipitation repeatedly missed. The month began to feel like an infinite loop of 10/-1 and sunny. As the month ended, conditions began to shift, and there were two rainstorms on the 26-27th and 31st that ended the month with nearly double the average precipitation. Temperatures finished well above average as well.


Conclusion: The best year since moving here by far, but that doesn't mean it's great. This year had three good months. 2015, 2016, and 2017 had zero.

December was wet and a little warmer than normal (mostly because of the lows). It seemed pretty cloudy. 

Overall the year was about 1F warmer than normal. More rainfall than usual; I guess the rainfall pattern looks a little mediterranean (had some dry spells late spring and summer and some heavy rainfall in the cooler months). 

2018 had the warmest May on record, the 6th warmest February, 5th coolest April, and 5th wettest February on record. 




Other December stats:

Coolest max: 44F
Warmest min: 57F

Days with lows below freezing: 2

Highest dewpoint: 69F
Lowest dewpoint: 27F
Average dewpoint: 45F

Thunder days: 2

I like this

Here there are the 2018 averages for my area.


First of all, this is the map of the weather stations I'm considering:





So here there is the final graph for the closest weather station to my place:


^ attention: about one week of rain data are missing in May. Altitude of the weather station: 520 m.

For this weather station I also made the averages for the period 1992-2018 (which are all the available years), so I can also give an extimation of the deviation from the average:


- Temperature-wise, the year has been about 0.5°C warmer than the average. The warmest months have been January, April, September, October and December, but also the summer months were quite warm. The most of this effect was compensated by a quite remarkable cold wave between February and March.
- Overall the year has been much rainier than usual: only June, September and December were below average. The number of rainy days has been higher than the average all year round instead. I'm very disappointed for the missing rain data in May, because the number of rainy days would have probably been the highest in the data series. That rain amount in January, which in here is usually a relatively dry month, is very remarkable as well.




Passing to the reference place for my region, the Turin Airport weather station:






I also made the averages for a couple of other weather stations around the valley. Last month it was pointed out that the snow and precipitation data didn't match, and actually they don't, but I really don't know how to solve the problem. These are all automatic weather stations, which are evidently giving some inconsistent measures for snow and precipitation in the winter months. So, even if those data are present in the tables, I don't trust them too much.


^ this weather station is within Turin metro area, in the very middle of the historical center of the city. So it undergoes a quite strong UHI effect.

Various places in Eastern Germany had below 300 mm of precipitation last year. Driest place was Dessau with meagre 259.2 mm

Here is Berlin, very sunny year in the capital:

Oh shit I did not know that. Was trying to avoid uploading it twice guess that's not gonna work. 

I just found a disgusting station in Oslo: Oslo - Hovin

It lies at 100m ASL and I decided to compare it to Oslo - Bygdøy at 15m ASL. Now, the highs are colder, as you'd expect from the altitude, even though Bygdøy is closer to the water. However, please do take a look at the lows. July averaged 18.5'C! For comparison, Utklippan, an islet in southern Sweden, with the highest average low in the country, recorded 18.4'C, and Stockholm's UHI station recorded 17.4'C. Subsequently the means are rather insane.


Alas, data's missing after September, and there are a few missing days of precipitation.


And here's a lazy summary of Blindern Airport for reference (same altitude as Hovin)