Don’t ever expect consistent temperatures in any season other than summer.

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I often get asked why our temperatures are all over the place? Or why can’t we have normal spring, fall or winter weather? I often have to point out there really isn’t anything consistent about temperatures around here until you get to summer.

The only season you can count on for pretty consistent temperatures are in the summer. When you look at the extremes of each season the high and lowest temperatures, we have ever seen you can see the crazy spread of all seasons with summer being the least extreme season.

WINTER

For winter the extreme can be pretty crazy. The one thing I can tell you is there will always be some snow in the 140 years of record keeping we have never had a winter with zero snow. What is also fascinating is in 140 years of record keeping we have hit 70° or higher every winter except for 17. That’s a stunning 88% of all winters we hit 70° or higher at least once. To show how crazy winter temperatures can check out the past 20 winters in Charlotte. This is the list of the highest and lowest temperature hit during the winter months. Last winter alone we had an all-time winter record high of 82° but we also at one point hit a low of just 8°. The lesson here if it’s not summer you literally can expect to see just about any temperature.

WHY ALL THE EXTREMES?

The thing that makes all the seasons so crazy other than summer is the jetstream. During the Autumn, Winter, and Spring we have two jetstreams that are very active over the U.S. When they dip we get cold when they move north we get warm. In the summer both branches of the jetstream tend to shift well north, and we end up with manly just warm weather. This is why in the summer we don;t get fronts or widespread rain, other than a tropical system. This is also why I get the summer tradition of why storms and rain always miss my house question. The airmass scattered storms are just that scattered it rarely rains everywhere until we get fronts. So if you are looking for consistency just wait until Summer.