2013 Rockets from Cold to Warm

Salt Lakers have been on a wild ride this year.  Remember how cold, snow covered, and polluted it was in the Salt Lake Vally during January?  During the last week of June, didn't that seem like a distant memory?  Here's a look back at the past six months in terms of mean temperature and departure from average at the Salt Lake Airport, with blue below and red above average:

January: 19.4ºF (10.1ºF below average)
February: 28.6ºF (5.6ºF below average)
March: 44.6ºF (1.0ºF above average)
April: 49.4ºF (1.2 ºF below average)
May: 62.6ºF (2.8ºF above average)
June: 75.3ºF (5.6ºF above average)

That is one heck of a rocket ride from extreme cold to extreme heat.  As far as I'm concerned, what we experienced this year is a worst-case scenario — very cold in January to very hot in June.  If we could switch that around, life would be far more enjoyable.  A mild January is still just fine for skiing, and the colder it is in June (and July), the better.  Shorten summer as much as possible.

January really gets my attention as it is one of the most anomalous months that I can recall in Salt Lake City.  In fact, it was the coldest January in Salt Lake since 1949.

Source: NCDC

The NWS lists June as the 3rd warmest.  Thus, its a pretty good guess that this years January to June transition was the largest and nastiest since 1949 (that January was so unbelievably cold that I suspect it will end up with a bigger January to June transition).  We should be able to check this out in a couple of days when NCDC releases the climate numbers for June.