State Climatologist: Last Month was Warmest Iowa March on Record

Last month, Iowa obliterated its mark for the highest average temperature ever recorded in March.

But ho hum, so did the rest of the country.

According to an article from Accuweather.com, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released an overview this week confirming that it was an unprecedented March in terms of high temperatures all over the country.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released their March 2012 National Overview report today, confirming that March was more than just a month of scattered warmth -- it shattered records across the U.S., becoming the only month ever recorded, except for January 2006, that had surpassed its record by such a large margin.

According to NOAA, the average temperature across the U.S. was 8.6 degrees above the 20th century average.

Oh and...

Every state in the nation experienced at least one record warm daily temperature in March, totaling 15,272 warm temperature records broken.

Iowa State Climatologist Harry Hillaker said Iowa may have been even more unusually warm than the rest of the country, melting the previous record average high set in 1910 by a margin of 2.4 degrees. Hillaker said Iowa's average March temperatures were 15.2 degrees above normal.

"It was easily our warmest March on record," Hillaker said.

March was so warm in Iowa that Hillaker said that there is an outside chance that March in Iowa will be warmer than April, something that has never happened in their records.

 "If April ended where we're right now, April would be a little warmer on average, but there still is a lot of time left in the month," he said.

Hillaker said these warm conditions were caused by a persistent warm weather system that block cold air from the arctic while welcoming in more warm weather from the Gulf of Mexico.

He said that even though we've enjoyed and so far this spring, it's too early too assume it will be an unusually warm summer. In fact, he said in all six previous March instances that set record highs, it was followed by mild months in May, June and July (which was then followed by warmer Augusts).

 "That's probably not enough data to establish a correlation showing that probably will happen, but it's at least somewhat reassuring that a really warm March like this doesn't necessarily mean an overly warm summer," Hillaker said.

Iowa City March Temperature Info From Harry Hillaker:

Monthly average temperature (the average of all of the daily maximum and minimum temperatures for the month) March 2012 averaged 52.5 degrees at the Iowa City Airport.   The old record for highest March average at Iowa City was ‘only’ 47.8 degrees set in March 1945.   Monthly average temperatures are available at Iowa City all the way back to 1858.   Thus, this would be the warmest March recorded at least since that year.

Daily record temperature data are available back to 1893.

New daily maximum temperature records were set in March 2012 on the following dates:

14th       77 in 2012, old record 73 in 1995.

15th       79 in 2012, old record 74 in 1935

16th       82 in 2012, old record 80 in 1945

17th       83 in 2012, old record 81 in 1894.

18th       82 in 2012, old record 80 in 1918.

19th       81 in 2012, old record 80 in 1921.

20th       78 in 2012, old record 77 in 1921.

One record that was not broken at Iowa City was the highest daily maximum temperature for the month of March.   The highest daily maximum in March 2012 was 83 on March 17.   This 83 degree reading has been exceeded in March at Iowa City many times, the highest of which was an 88 degree reading set on March 29, 1986.