For the winter season comprising the months of December thru February and considering an average daily temperature, many sites in the upper Midwestern US had their warmest winter on record. As the feature title denotes, there is a bit of an asterisk to this statement. The asterisk is the consideration of the winter of 1877-1878, which is before the period of record starts for the vast majority of long term climate data for the region. The featured table presents some IEM computed winter season average temperature records for selected sites over the region. The warmest value is highlighted. For a number of sites with data for 1877-1878, that winter was much warmer than our most recently finished one. Minneapolis and Milwaukee are exceptions with this winter warmer than the 1877-1878 one. The official NCEI statewide data starts in 1895, so it may end up showing this winter as the warmest on record for a number of states (including Iowa), but that statistic would not include 1877-1878. Another interesting data point is Bismarck, ND, whose warmest winter was 1930-1931 and that even includes the 1877-1878 one.

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Tags:   winter   2024