From NOAA:

While Mother Nature was still giving the United States the cold shoulder during March, many other areas across the world experienced higher-than-average monthly temperatures according to the latest statistics from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The average global temperature for March 2013 tied with 2006 as the 10th warmest March since record keeping began in 1880. It also marked the 37th consecutive March and 337th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average March temperature was March 1976, and the last below-average temperature for any month was February 1985.

I sometimes get comments during cold snaps along the lines of “what happened to your global warming”, but in reality the unusual cold in the Eastern U.S. and Western Europe may very well be related to the rapid drop in Arctic ice. Lot’s of work being done in the field right now , but Deke Ardndt at Climate.Gov has a good video about it that is well worth a watch.

..also check out this video showing the rapid drop in Arctic Sea ice. The data is one thing but the picture is much more telling..