USA's winter was warmer and wetter than average

Doyle Rice, USA TODAY | USATODAY

The winter of 2012-13 in the USA was both warmer and wetter than average, according to data released Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Meteorological winter is considered to be the three months of December, January and February.

The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during the winter season was 34.3 degrees, which is 1.9 degrees above the 20th-century average, marking the 20th-warmest winter on record, NOAA reported.

As for precipitation, while the Southeast and upper Midwest were wetter than average, much of the West was quite dry, especially in January and February, contributing to below-average snowpack in the Sierra and Rockies.

"Drought conditions continued to plague much of the Great Plains and West," according to the NOAA report.

So far this year, California is enduring its driest year on record. For example, NOAA reports that San Francisco has recorded only 1.82 inches of rain thus far in 2013, which is the 5th driest January-February on record in the city.

National U.S. weather records go back to 1895.

Winter was warmer than average for every state east of the Rockies. The warmest states were along the East Coast. Florida, Delaware and Vermont each had one of their 10 warmest winters on record.

Conversely, the Southwest was cooler than average, while near-average winter temperatures were reported in the Northwest.

Based on NOAA's "Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index," due to the overall mild winter, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was less than half of average. This was the 14th-smallest such value on record.

Overall, snow was quite plentiful this winter: According to data from the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the winter average snow cover extent for the contiguous U.S. was 1.3 million square miles, which was 127,000 square miles above average. This marked the 15th-largest seasonal snow cover extent on record. Snow cover records go back to 1966.