The lottery pick (or overall National Climatic Data Center Ranking) number for October 2012 came up as 44, the 44th coldest ranking on record for the lower 48 states for any October since 1895. A ranking of 1 would have been the coldest possible ranking. The National Climatic Data Center has been ranking months, seasons and years from 1 to 118 since 1895 with 1 being the coldest possible temperature average ranking and 118 being the warmest possible temperature average. In the Climate Lottery game, I've defined each individual lottery number as rankings for each month for the lower 48 states, Power Ball numbers as those for each season, and Mega Ball numbers as those for each year. As we keep seeing over and over again the Climate Lottery game is rigged towards those higher number rankings due to global warming, but October was a "gotcha" month since below average temperature rankings occurred for most of the lower 48 states. Some contrarians will point to the cool month as proof that global warming may not be occurring, yet I will contend that due to the warming an overall cool season across the U.S. will be a rare event. So far, for the contest of fall 2012 Dr. Jeff Masters and I tied for the best picks for October, which was 85...good going, Jeff! Our picks were too warm, overall, for the month, but they were the lowest of everyone who played.
October 2012 was a good example of how the atmosphere can line up to produce cooler than average conditions for a large geographical area, such as the continental U.S. despite an overall warming trend across the planet due to man induced climate change. One huge event did occur at the end of the month, which many climatologists attribute to climate change: Hurricane Sandy. For more on Sandy see Andrew Freedman's post from Climate Central at:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/how-global-warming-made-hurricane-sandy-worse-15190
In October the overall ranking for the lower 48 states was 44 (out of 118):
The jet stream was oriented such that cool air masses penetrated through the nation's mid-section with warmer than average temperatures occurring in the West and Northeast. The overall raking for the U.S. came up as 44...slightly below the average of 59... and a "black" or neutral number as rankings go. Looking at the map you can pick out each individual state ranking. Again the overall ranking of 44 is not an average of the 48 individual state rankings; rather the ranking is a comparison of temperature averages for the lower 48 states for each October since 1895.
Again, I am getting all of my ranking numbers from the National Climatic Data Center.
The link for the National Climatic Data Center's Climate at a Glance Site where the rankings are archived is: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/cag3.html
I'm keeping the format on all of my charts the same as on my previous posts.
The average ranking for 2012 is 59 since the coldest ranking would be 1 and the hottest would be 118. I have color coded all rankings for this post at or below 38 blue and all those at or above 79 red with rankings + or -- 19 from the median value of 59 black.
For a reference to my last "Climate Dice" post see: http://www.weather.com/news/climate-dice-sixth-roll-20120912
November 2012 has started out on the warm side, despite winter storms occurring in the West and in the Northeast. As of this writing across the U.S. 725 daily record highs have been either set or tied while only 148 stations have set or tied daily record lows for the month of November. We'll see if this trend goes on for the rest of the fall, or if the overall warmth of this year continues.
Guy Walton...."That Climate Guy"
Lead Forecaster, the Weather Channel
