Above normal temperatures are favored for New England, as well as most of the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii, the NWS center indicated Thursday in its “long lead seasonal outlook” for March, April and May.
“Below normal temperatures are favored for a small area of the southern rockies and Texas,” according to the report from the NWS Climate Prediction Center, which is based in College Park, Md.
The 90-day prognostic came on the heels of 51 degree temperatures and heavy rains in Bangor on Wednesday that reduced Bangor’s official snow depth from 11 inches to zero in one day, according to meteorologists at the NWS Caribou station.
The longer range outlook is based on “strong El Nino conditions that still persist across the equatorial Pacific Ocean,” according to the Climate Prediction Center.
El Nino is a weather phenomenon caused by periodic warming in areas of the Pacific Ocean. The changing ocean temperatures can alter atmospheric conditions and affect weather patterns around the world. Meteorologists with the NWS in Caribou said El Nino has been partially responsible for record-setting temperatures in Maine at the end of 2015 and start of 2016.
The combined December 2015-January 2016 time period was the warmest on record in the Caribou and Bangor areas by more than 2 degrees, surpassing the winter of 2001-2002, when the average temperature was 26.2 degrees, according to the NWS Caribou station.
January ended as the fifth warmest first month of the year on record in Caribou with an average temperature of 18.2 degrees, behind only January 2006, 2010, 1958 and the all-time warmest January in 1956, which averaged 21.3 degrees.
Bangor saw the 12th warmest January on record, with an average temperature of 22.4 degrees.
The high January temperatures followed a December that was the warmest on record in Caribou, Bangor and Portland. The average temperature of 28.5 degrees in Caribou in December was 10.3 degrees above the 30-year average. In Bangor, the average temperature of 34 degrees in December was 9.4 degrees above the average, according to the NWS.
February kicked off with temperatures in the 50s across the state.
