Part I - Overview of Surface Weather Conditions |
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The December 1989 arctic outbreak was a historic event with many all-time record low temperatures set across the central and eastern United States. Locally, in northern New York as well as central and northern Vermont, December 1989 was one of the coldest months on record.
In this write-up, we will investigate how unusual the month of December 1989 was across the North Country. To examine the significance of this event we will review climate data for two sites across Weather Forecast Office (WFO) Burlington (BTV) County Warning Area (CWA). These sites include Burlington (BTV), Vermont, which has 117 years of reliable climate data back to 1891 and St. Johnsbury, Vermont, which is located in eastern Vermont, and has 111 years of dependable climate data back to 1894. Many locations east of the Green Mountains in Vermont did not experience temperatures above freezing for the entire month, with numerous overnight lows temperatures well below zero. Saint Johnsbury recorded its lowest monthly average temperature since records began. Toward the end of the month average daily temperatures along and west of the Champlain Valley warmed to above 32 (F), but east of the Green Mountains stayed below freezing through December 31st.
Through the use of detailed graphs and charts we will show where December 1989 ranked among the top ten coldest months ever and discuss the remarkable change in temperature to above normal levels during January 1990. Furthermore, we will show the large temperature departure from normal at Burlington and St. Johnsbury for December 1989. In Part 2, the large scale synoptic pattern will be investigated, along with differences in the tropospheric flow across the Northern Hemisphere, which contributed to the bitterly cold December 1989 and the anomalously warm January 1990 across the northeastern United States. Furthermore, we will employ teleconnection indices to better calculate the large-scale pattern differences between these two contrasting months and explain the resulting impact on temperatures across the North Country. |
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Figure 1 shows the December monthly average temperature at Burlington from 1891 to 2008 (blue line). The red line shows the December average monthly temperature of 22.4° Fahrenheit (F) for the entire 117-year period of record. Note the average monthly temperature of 7.5° (F) in December 1989, was the coldest December monthly average temperature ever documented at Burlington.
The second coldest December monthly average temperature at Burlington occurred in 1917 of 12.2° (F). This clearly illustrates how bitterly cold the month of December 1989 was, when compared to other December monthly average temperatures at BTV. |
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Figure 2 shows the daily December 1989 maximum and minimum temperatures at Burlington, Vermont compared to normal. The red dotted line signifies the average daily high temperature, while the blue dotted line shows the average daily low temperature. Meanwhile, the solid red line indicates the daily high temperature recorded at Burlington and the solid blue line shows the daily recorded low temperature for the month of December 1989.
Note the warmest high temperature was 41° (F) on the 31st, with the coldest reading of -18° (F) occurring on 24th. From the graphic, only one day (Dec 31st) had above normal temperatures, whereas much of the rest of the month featured daily highs and lows between 15 and 30 degrees below normal. |
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Figure 3 shows a bar graph of the top 10 coldest average December temperatures ever at Burlington, Vermont.
From the graph, the December 1989 average temperature was 7.5° (F), which ranked as the coldest December ever, followed by 12.2° (F) in 1917. This illustrates the long duration and bitterly cold air mass across the North Country. |
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In the following section we will discuss the data for St Johnsbury, Vermont, located in eastern Vermont. This site has very reliable climate data back to 1894 with only a couple years of missing data (1974, 1975, and 1987). Figure 4 illustrates the December 1989 maximum and minimum temperature trends for St. Johnsbury. |
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The blue line in Figure 4 demonstrates the actual daily high temperature, while the red line shows the daily low temperature during the month of December 1989. Meanwhile, the yellow line is the 111-year average daily maximum temperature and the solid purple line is the average daily minimum temperature at St. Johnsbury.
This data indicates that only December 26th and 31st experienced above normal temperatures for the month, while the coldest overnight low of -26° (F) occurred on the 24th. In addition, 23 nights had low temperatures at or below 0° (F) and several daytime high temperatures never reach 10° (F). The numbers located on the blue and red lines in Figure 4, indicate the actual high and low temperatures respectively at St. Johnsbury during the month of December 1989. |
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Figure 5 below signifies the December 1989 daily average temperature departure from normal at St. Johnsbury. The blue bar lines in the graph below indicate the degrees below normal daily average temperature, while the red bar lines show the number of days where the daily average temperature was above normal. For December 1989 at St. Johnsbury only two days 26th and 31st had above normal daily average temperatures (red bar line) while the rest of the month experienced much below normal temperatures. Numerous days the departure was 15 to 25 degrees below normal, especially between the 20th and 25th of December. The green dotted line is the 111-year December daily average temperature at St. Johnsbury, while the solid black line is the December 1989 daily average temperature. The large spread between the dotted green line and solid black line, suggests the large departure of below normal temperatures which occurred. The actual numbers on the blue bar graphic in figure 5 below, show the average temperature departure from normal in degrees Fahrenheit (F). |
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Figure 6 shows the top ten coldest months on record at St Johnsbury, Vermont. Note December 1989 was the coldest month ever at Saint Johnsbury with a monthly average temperature of 5.5 degrees. The 2nd coldest monthly average temperature at St Johnsbury occurred in February 1934 with a temperature of 6.1 degrees.
Given that December is not typically the coldest month of the year, the fact that December 1989 is the coldest on record for St. Johnsbury and most other sites east of the Green Mountains in Vermont is particularly noteworthy. |
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Figure 7 shows the December 1989 daily average temperature versus January 1990 daily average temperature at St Johnsbury. The red line in the figure below shows the January 1990 daily average temperature, while the blue line below shows the daily average December 1989 temperature at St Johnsbury. The graph clearly shows January 1990 was much warmer than December 1989, with only January 7th daily average temperature of 17.5 degrees, being 3 degrees lower than the December 7th daily average temperature of 20.5 degrees. Also from the graph below the average temperature on 16 January 1990 was 46 degrees, while only 10.5 degrees was observed on 16 December 1989. As much as December 1989 was below normal, January 1990 was much above normal across the North Country, including at St Johnsbury. We will shed further light on the pattern differences between the two months in Part 2. |
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On a national scale, the December 1989 arctic outbreak was a historic event with many all-time record low temperatures set across the central and eastern half of the United States. This cold outbreak included all-time record low temperatures for the month of December being broken at Kearney and Valentine, Nebraska of -31° (F) and -39° (F) respectively. Meanwhile, across the North Country, Lake Placid in northern New York set an all time record low for December at -29° (F) on the 27th and had 26 days where the low temperature was below zero degrees Fahrenheit. We will now discuss the large-scale synoptic weather pattern that prevailed across the country to produce this extreme and long duration cold outbreak. |
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During this prolonged arctic outbreak several surges of bitterly cold air moved across the central and eastern United States. As an example, Figure 8 shows the Daily Weather Map for 22 December 1989 at 1200 Universal Time Constant (UTC) or 7 AM Eastern Standard Time (EST). The surface analysis revealed an extremely strong anticyclone (1054 millibars, mb) across the Central High Plains with an arctic boundary extending from the Gulf of Mexico into Central Florida. Temperatures beneath this surface high pressure ranged between -20° (F) and -30° (F), with Valentine, Nebraska at -36° (F). These frigid temperatures extended across the Deep South with the freezing line across northern Florida and the southern gulf coast states. In addition, temperatures were well below 0° (F) across the interior Northeast and Great Lakes region. Sub zero readings occurred at Denver, Colorado during this arctic outbreak with a low temperature of -18° (F) on 22 December 1989, which illustrated the depth of this cold air mass. This very cold arctic high pressure tracked from the Central Plains into the Ohio Valley, before departing the east coast toward the end of the month as the flow aloft became zonal and the polar vortex weakened. |
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Figure 9 is a composite reanalysis map of mean sea-level pressure across the United States. The black lines are the sea level pressure contours, while the colored image in Figure 9 is the mean sea-level pressure anomaly. The dark red color in the image indicates 32 to 36 mb above normal high pressure anomaly across the Central Plains, signifying anomalously strong surface high pressure. Surface observations and reanalysis data show sea-level pressure readings associated with this area of high pressure of 1054 mb, which is exceptionally high. This strong Canadian high pressure slowly weakened as it moved into the Ohio Valley, but continued to produce record cold temperatures under mainly clear skies. It's very unusual to observe such high pressure readings so far south, away from the polar region, where this system originated from. Finally, Figure 9 illustrates a strong northerly gradient flow across New York and Vermont created by departing surface low pressure over the Canadian Maritimes and building high pressure from the Central Plains. This, combined with a Hudson Bay polar vortex, produced a series of fast moving arctic boundaries across our region, reinforcing the very cold air mass over the North Country. |