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.