It’s warm outside, unseasonably warm – in fact, February 2017 is the second warmest February on record for Geary County.
Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, said that the warmer temperatures have shortened the migration period of some bird species.
“We’ve got several bird species in the state that have returned three to four weeks earlier than normal; we’ve got plants that are blooming – and plants blooming early doesn’t concern me too much – but, looking at the progress of the migration of certain birds species from the South, they’re definitely moving ahead of schedule,” said Otte.
A warm February doesn’t necessarily indicate an early Spring.
“[It] was our second warmest February here, only 1954 was hotter; it concerns me because we’ve still got March to go through, and we can have an awful lot of Winter weather in March – and just because we had a warm February doesn’t mean we’re going to have a warm March,” said Otte who suspects “there are still freezing temperatures ahead.”
Otte compiled the numbers for February.
“The average temperature for February this year was 44.9, that is 11.8 degrees above normal; the average overnight low in February was 33.4 – that is the warmest average overnight low temperature ever for the month of February,” said Otte.
According to Otte, in 1954 the average temperature in Geary County was 46.3 degrees – this begs the question…can any of this truly be attributed to global warming?
The Weather Channel compiled a list of cities that had record breaking temperatures throughout the month of February. According to their data, over 250 record high temperatures were set in various cities across the United States. Scientists are partially blaming global warming, but also chalk the warm temperatures up to “natural weather variation.”
The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning for Geary County until 6:00 pm today. This means that critical fire weather conditions will occur. A combination of strong winds, low relative humidity and warm temperatures can contribute to extreme fire behavior.
This also includes Dickinson, Morris, Clay, Lyon, Cloud, Ottawa, and Republic counties.