The first half of January has seen warmer than average temperatures in Beavercreek and across the region. Throughout December and January there have been more days with unseasonably warm temperatures continuing a trend that put 2006 on record as the third warmest year in history. While the warm weather will eventually come to an end, it has already had a sizable impact.

With development in Beavercreek at an all time high, the warmer temperatures have allowed for new construction to continue relatively unabated. Residents who drive along North Fairfield see steady progress on the building of a new Chick-fil-A and shopping center on North Fairfield just north of Kemp Road as well as other construction throughout the city.


The unusually warm temperatures during October through December also helped reduce residential energy needs for the nation as a whole. Nationally, residential energy demand was approximately 13.5 percent lower than what would have occurred under normal conditions.


NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, predicts that this winter is likely to be 2 percent warmer than the 30-year norm, but still 9 percent cooler than last year’s unusually warm winter season. After a cold start to December, persistent spring-like temperatures in the eastern two-thirds of the country during the final two to three weeks of 2006 made this the fourth warmest December on record. Even in Denver, which had its third snowiest December on record and endured a major blizzard, the temperature for the month was 1.4 degrees F warmer than average.

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Predictions call for the warming trend to soon come to an end. Forecasts for this weekend include high temperatures in the upper 40’s, but on Tuesday more seasonable temperatures return with highs forecast in the upper 20’s. But this most recent warming trend was also preceded by colder temperatures and similar forecasts that the warm weather was over.


Across the United States, the 2006 average annual temperature was the warmest on record and nearly identical to the record set in 1998, according to NOAA scientists. Seven months in 2006 were much warmer than average, including December, which ended as the fourth warmest December since records began in 1895.


Global annual temperatures are now approximately 1.0 degrees F warmer than at the start of the 20th century, and the rate of warming has accelerated over the past 30 years, increasing globally since the mid-1970s at a rate approximately three times faster than normal. The past nine years have all been among the 25 warmest years on record for the contiguous U.S., a streak which is unprecedented in the historical record.

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Sources for this article included NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service.