While the folks in Boston will remember the bone-chilling cold in mid-January that produced new gas demand records, this winter (December-February) will go down in history as being pretty average overall across the entire nation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In fact, population-weighted heating degree days for the storage withdrawal season to date (November-March) are averaging 4% warmer than normal and 5% warmer than last winter. The last three weeks of above normal temperatures nationwide are telling many in the gas industry that the winter is nearing its end.

Without an El Nino or La Nina in place this spring, NOAA forecasters expect “a typical level of springtime variability in temperature and precipitation to occur in many areas of the nation,” said NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher.

“Specifically, NOAA meteorologists predict an enhanced likelihood for below-normal temperatures in the northern Great Plains and above-normal temperatures in Alaska, the Southwest and parts of the South for April through June,” Lautenbacher said. The long lead forecast shows a band of above normal temperatures stretching from Northern California and the Pacific Northwest through the Southwest and across South Texas and the Gulf Coast region, as well as the southern tip of Florida. For the rest of the country there are equal chances of above or below normal temperatures through June except for an area of below normal temperatures in the Dakotas, western Wisconsin, Montana and most of Wyoming.

Looking deeper into the summer, NOAA expects the above normal temperatures to stretch across the entire southern third of the nation, including all of California and, by August, the coast of the Pacific Northwest and most of the Mid Atlantic and Ohio Valley. The area of below normal temperatures remains basically the same until vanishing in August.

“Above normal precipitation is likely in the far Northwest [this spring] and below normal likely in Texas, parts of surrounding states and most of Louisiana and Florida,” Lautenbacher said.

Water deficits are expected to be alleviated in the northern and central Great Plains, but the drought is expected to persist in many areas in the West,especially in much of Arizona and New Mexico. In the Southwest, snowmelt will be absorbed quickly by dry soils from five dry years, reducing the refill of many reservoirs that are well below normal levels, NOAA said.

Meanwhile, snowpack and snow water content have been near normal this winter in the Great Basin and Pacific Northwest, but NOAA noted that continued improvement in water supplies throughout the West depends largely on snowfall continuing into spring. “In many cases, the meltwater will not be enough to replenish depleted reservoirs,” according to the agency.

The 2003-2004 winter weather pattern did, in fact, improve drought conditions in many locations. Nevertheless, NOAA cautions that improvement does not mean total relief.

“Despite periods of record cold and warmth, as a whole, the 2003-2004 winter season will go down in the record books as near average for the nation,” said Tom Karl, director of the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC. “The Eastern U.S. was cooler than average, while warmer than average conditions affected much of the rest of the country. While there were periods of unusually heavy rain and snow in parts of the country, including above average precipitation in some parts of the West, precipitation was near average for the contiguous U.S.”

Meanwhile, the global surface temperature was much warmer than the long-term mean for the December-February season, NOAA said. NOAA scientists reported that the average temperature for the Lower 48 winter was 33.7 degrees F (0.9 degrees C), or 0.7 degrees F (0.4 degrees C) above average, the 42nd warmest winter since nationwide records began in 1895. NOAA said 10 states from Mississippi to Massachusetts were colder than average, while 13 states from Michigan to New Mexico and Montana were warmer than average. Nine of the past 10 winters have been warmer than the long-term mean for the Lower 48.

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