Warm Winter
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Sometimes you just don't want the weather to be warm. If you like to experience winter on a pair of skiis or on a snowmobile then this wasn't the winter for you in the midwest and in the northeast.

In fact, it was the nations' warmest winter on record. The season got a one, two, three punch from a series of what we'll call warm waves that kept the snowfall short and not so sweet.

The first warm spell came in early November last fall when over 800 record highs were set across the country. The temperatures approached 80 degrees in November as far north as Montana and they hit a summer-like 89 in South Dakota. Then things got a little more seasonal in December but record heat came back for the holidays. I'm sure Santa must have been sweating when he found temperatures on Christmas day in the 40s at International Falls, MN; usually the coldest city in the lower 48.

It still hadn't snowed by New Year's in Boston, New York City and even Portland, ME. The east finally got some winter with a surprise snowstorm in late January and it stayed chilly for several more weeks. But, then came the knockout blow to winter.

In early March there was a phenomemnal spring thaw. In fact, on March 8th people are normally skiing and sledding in places like northern Michigan. This time though the temperature in Marquette, MI was a balmy 71 degrees. That broke the record high by 15 degrees. In just a few days, Marquette's 3 feet of snowcover turned to mud.

The winter of 1999-2000 looks like another benchmark in the worldwide warming trend of the last two decades.

The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru with major support coming from the National Science Foundation.