Last Two Months the Coldest on Record

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 5 -- The suspicions of millions of shiveringAmericans were confirmed today by government weather experts — itwas the nation’s coldest November-December period.

“Two months in a row of much below average temperaturesresulted in the coldest November-December U.S. temperature onrecord, 33.8 degrees Fahrenheit,” said Jay Lawrimore, chief of theClimate Monitoring Branch at the National Climatic Data Center.This broke the old record of 34.2 set in 1898.

It was the country’s second coldest November nationwide and theseventh coldest December, according to records kept by the Centerin Asheville, N.C.

And the outlook isn’t cheering.

No El Niño or La Niña to Blame

National Weather Service Director Jack Kelly said the weather of2000 was shaped by variability and extremes, which will continuethroughout the winter.

“The eastern and western United States will experienceadditional cold outbreaks at least through March with periods ofmoderation in between,” he said.

The wintry weather was not unexpected, however, with the WeatherService calling for a return to more normal winter conditions afterseveral years of mild winters, Lawrimore noted.

The El Niño-La Niña weather phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean hasfaded into a near neutral state, eliminating that strong weatherinfluence of the last few years.

Now conditions are more like those of the 1970s, he said, withthe jet stream — the fast, high-level wind that helps direct themovement of weather — forming a trough in the central and easternUnited States, bringing cold arctic air southward

It’s a little bit unusual for this pattern to persist for twomonths, however, rather than having a period of cold followed by awarmup then more cold, Lawrimore explained.

Still Warming on Average

Forty-three states within the contiguous United States recorded belowaverage temperatures during the November-December period, accordingto records kept by the center, a division of the government’sNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.