WASHINGTON — It will probably come as a surprise to most Americans, but the winter just finished was the fifth-warmest on record, worldwide.
Oh, sure, nearly two-thirds of the U.S. can dispute that from personal experience of a colder-than-normal season.
But while much of the country was colder than usual, the time period of December-February — climatological winter — continued the long string of unusual warmth globally.
And parts of the U.S. did join in, with warmer-than-normal readings in New England and the Pacific Northwest. Maine had its third- warmest winter on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports.
NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center reports that worldwide, the average temperature for winter was 54.9 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 1.08 degrees F above average for the three-month period. In February NOAA reported that the 2000-2009 decade was the warmest on record, easily surpassing the previous hottest decade, the 1990s.
