NOAA reports on our cooler than normal spring

NOAA: U.S. Has 36th Coolest Spring on Record
June 6, 2008

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
The March-May spring season was the 36th coolest on record for the contiguous United States, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Separately, last month ended as the 34th coolest May for the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895.
The average spring temperature of 51.4 degrees F was 0.5 degree F below the 20th century average. The average May temperature of 60.3 degrees F was 0.7 degree F below the 20th century mean, based on preliminary data.
U.S. Temperature Highlights
The March-May temperatures were cooler than average from the Northwest and extending throughout the central Plains and upper Mississippi Valley. In all, 19 states had a cooler-than-average spring.
Twenty-five states were cooler than average for May. Pennsylvania was much cooler than average and ranked eighth coolest.
The unusually cool temperatures kept the nation’s overall temperature-related residential energy demand for May above average. Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was approximately 3.5 percent above average in May, but near average for the spring season.
Florida, Texas, and Washington were warmer than average for May.

RSS: Global Temperature Also Cooler in May

A few days ago I highlighted the drop in global temperatures as measured by satellite from UAH, the University of Alabama, Huntsville. They published their satellite derived Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit data set of the Lower Troposphere for May 2008 and it showed that it is significantly colder globally, colder even than the significant drop to -0.046°C seen in January 2008.

The global ∆T for UAH from April to May 2008 was -.195°C

RSS (Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA) RSS Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) lower troposphere global temperature anomaly data by For May 2008 is published and has moved below the zero anomaly line, with a value of -0.083°C for a change (∆T) of -0.163 °C globally from April 2008.

RSS
2008 1 -0.070
2008 2 -0.002
2008 3 0.079
2008 4 0.080
2008 5 -0.083

I had predicted when I posted the UAH data that the RSS value for global temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere would end up around 0.05 to -0.15°C. Coming in at -0.083°C, I was on target.

This value is greater in magnitude than the drop seen in January 2008 to -0.07°C