With just one week to go in the calendar year, it appears 2014 will go down as another in a series of years with a low temperature spread.
The lowest temperature in 2014 was 25 below on Jan. 2. The warmest was 93 on three occasions, May 30, July 20 and July 21. Although the winter of 2013-14 was very cold consistently, there was little in the way of extreme cold. And the summer of 2014 simply was not hot. This is a range of 118 degrees, which is a large range compared to most places on Earth but represents a relatively benign range for our region. The average annual temperature spread is 127 degrees, and the record, set in 1936, is 151 degrees (37 below to 114).
Last year, 2013, was also without extremes of temperature with a range from 96 degrees on Aug. 20 to 21 below on Feb. 1 and Dec. 23. The smallest range in any year was set in 2002 when the range was only 110 degrees – 12 below to 98 degrees.
The past two years have also brought a relatively low amount of severe thunderstorm activity and tornadoes and an absence of severe flooding on the Red River.
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