Warmth of 1999

[thehawk]

After looking back through climate records, I cant help but notice how exceptionally warm the year 1999 was in the maritimes. In particular, the months of May, June, July and September. I remember it quite well, actually. I was living in Port Hawkesbury at the time. It was one of the warmest spring and summer I had ever seen.

In May 1999 for example, most stations located in the valley and central/northern NS had an average high temperature of 20° or more - Something you don't see very often. In June, the average high was between 24° and 26° for those same areas - A good 3-4 degrees above normal. July continued to be warm, and had some very hot days. On Jul 17th there were widespread max temps of 34/35 across the province. August had near normal temps, but the heat returned again in September, making it one of the warmest on record.

Here are some stats for Greenwood - Mean high temp with normals in parenthesis...

May.....21.2° (17.2°)
June....25.4° (22.4°)
July.....27.3° (25.5°)
Aug.....25.0° (24.8°)
Sep.....24.3° (19.9°)

What exactly was going on in the atmosphere between May and September 1999 that caused such an intense and prolonged period of warmth across the maritmes? Was it something to do with El Nino or La Nina?

Here is the 1999 Monthly climate data summary for Greenwood, NS...

(Posted Image)

And for Windsor, NS....

(Posted Image)

[Stormposter]

Yep I remember the summer of '99 being quite warm. Don't know the specifics off hand, but it was a La Nina year, which I believe does tend to favour warmer summertime conditions over the eastern part of North America.