Robert K. O'Daniell, APUniversity of Illinois freshmen Jill Marik, left, and Jeremy Vivit enjoy unseasonably warm weather on March 13 on the campus Quad in Urbana, Ill.
Robert K. O'Daniell, APUniversity of Illinois freshmen Jill Marik, left, and Jeremy Vivit enjoy unseasonably warm weather on March 13 on the campus Quad in Urbana, Ill.
Coming on the heels of the fourth-warmest winter on record in the USA, nature and the economy were thrown off rhythm, as jobs, retail sales, crops and bugs sprouted outside their normal cycles.Though the calendar says we're still in spring, climatologists define spring as the months of March, April and May; weather records go back to 1895."Record and near-record warmth dominated the eastern two-thirds of the nation during spring," according to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) report. "Thirty-one states were record warm for the season. Only Oregon and Washington had spring temperatures near normal."
The spring season's nationally averaged temperature was 57.1 degrees, 5.2 degrees above the long-term average, and surpassing the previous warmest spring (1910) by 2 degrees.The amount by which the spring broke the record was also phenomenal: Spring 2012 marked the largest temperature departure from average of any season on record in the USA, the center reported.In addition, the center also announced that the USA is seeing its warmest start to the year since records began.The warmth wreaked havoc on plants and insects across the country, leading to an unusually early blooming of the cherry trees in Washington, D.C. Apple and peach trees bloomed two months early in the Midwest.Just Wednesday, the Federal Reserve's Beige Book report on the economy said the warm spring had boosted tourism, bolstering everything from Florida visits by foreigners to ticket sales on Broadway.Restaurant sales rose by double digits in January and February, months when cold weather keeps many consumers home, helping calm fears that gas prices would slash discretionary spending. Sales of vehicles and parts rose 7.3% in the first quarter, accounting for more than a fourth of the economy's growth, according to the government.Analysts think car buyers came out earlier than usual this year because dealer lots weren't freezing, said Chris Christopher, an economist at consulting firm IHS Global Insight. And The Home Depot's shares are up 20% this year, largely because of strong winter sales, though momentum at rival Lowe's has cooled since March.Economists at Moody's Analytics think the warm weather added about 50,000 jobs a month during January and February, Moody's associate economist Sara Kline said. But then the weather has hurt employment growth in recent months given some car, new-house and home-improvement sales happened sooner than expected, both said."Workers were brought back more quickly than usual in construction, in trucking and leisure and hospitality than they would be in a normal winter," Kline said. "The flip side is not getting as much growth as expected in March and April."Too much hot, dry weather can be bad news for agriculture, but it's hard to say how bad the impact this year will be. The Texas economy lost more than $7.6 billion due to last year's heat and drought, said Mark Waller, an agricultural economist at the Texas AgriLife Extension at Texas A&M University."It's not as bad as it was last year," because the Texas winter wasn't as dry, he said. "We haven't been hot enough yet this year to damage crops, and we probably got some early hay cutting because it warmed up early."How warm has it been? Chicago saw eight days in the 80s in March and five days in the 90s in May, the National Weather Service reported, smashing records in a city known for cold, windy weather.The cause of the strange heat was an ongoing pattern that kept the jet stream much farther to the north than usual, according to NCDC climatologist Jake Crouch. This allowed warm air to spread across most of the country east of the Rockies, he said.The heat is expected to continue: In its summer forecast released in May, the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said that about three-fourths of the nation — from the Southwest to the Mid-Atlantic — should see above-average temperatures from June-August.Additionally, the CPC announced Thursday that there is a 50% chance that El Niño conditions will develop during the second half of the year. El Niño is a periodic warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that primarily affects winter weather in the USA.A typical El Niño tends to bring warmer-than-average winter temperatures to much of the northern USA and cooler-than-average temperatures to the nation's southern tier, the CPC reports.Worldwide data for spring will be released June 14. Through April, the globe was not experiencing the level of unusual warmth that the USA was: The worldwide temperature for January-April was only the 15th warmest on record, the climate center reported in May.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. 