One more unseasonably warm day Wed. with afternoon temps. around 80. Changes begin Thu. as a low pressure system organizes & strengthens as it moves near Jax in the afternoon. Warm temps. in advance of the system will continue through the middle of the day then the cold front will sweep west to east in the afternoon with clouds & -- behind the front -- showers. The heaviest rain will move north of the First Coast with this weather system, but most of the area should get at least some light rain later Thu. into Thu. night. Temps. will peak at midday then slowly fall in the afternoon. As the low moves away Fri., gusty north to northeast winds will make for a chilly day Fri. as
temps. struggle to reach 60 degrees. The weekend will be cool but pleasant with highs in the 60s. A much stronger cold front will move through the area next Tue. & will likely finally bring a freeze to the First Coast the middle of next week.
More on the extreme weather of 2012 (from the National Resources Defense Council):
States Ranked by Greatest Percentage of Locations with Record-Breaking Heat; Top Ten States -- CO, IL, IN, MD, ME, MN, NV, TN, WI, WV -- to be Highlighted
NEW YORK (January 15, 2013) – Thousands of monthly weather records were broken in communities throughout the US in 2012, as detailed in an updated interactive extreme weather mapping tool and year-end review to be released at Noon EST on Tuesday, January 15, 2013, by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). 2012 tallies reveal even more monthly weather records set than the 3,251 records smashed in 2011, with record-breaking heat, rainfall and snow events catalogued by state.
New this year, the interactive map at www.nrdc.org/extremeweather will also rank all 50 states by their percentage of weather stations reporting at least one monthly heat record broken in 2012. The top 10 states to be highlighted (in alphabetical order): Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
In 2012, Americans experienced several unforgettably devastating extreme events. Climate scientists say these types of events are fueled by climate change:
* 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded in the US, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) State of the Climate report released last Tuesday.
* Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge height, 13.88 feet, broke the all-time record in the New York Harbor, and ravaged communities across New Jersey and New York with floodwaters and winds.
* The summer of 2012 was the worst drought in 50 years across the nation’s breadbasket, with over 1,300 US counties across 29 states declared drought disaster areas.
* The hottest March on record in the contiguous US, and July was the hottest single month ever recorded in the lower 48 states.
* Wildfires burned over 9.2 million acres in the US, and destroyed hundreds of homes.
NOAA has estimated that 2012 will surpass 2011 in aggregate costs for U.S. annual billion-dollar disasters, in large part due to the trails of destruction from Superstorm Sandy and the yearlong drought.
Click here for U.S. maps of the 2012 warmth across the Lower 48.
Click ** here ** for the following video:
HD video of flat world temperature departures from '51-80 base video runs :51 with 5 second hold on 2012 at the end
