As we turn the calendar to the month of December, we close several meteorological seasons and start the meteorological winter season.
Meteorologists have elected to use a standard three month grouping to identify each meteorological season. Hence, September, October and November are considered to be the autumn or fall meteorological season, while the months of December, January and February are the winter season. You will note that the winter solstice, marking the day where the length of daylight is least in the Northern Hemisphere is still 3 weeks away, falling early on Thursday, 21 December 2000. Since the coldest temperatures typically fall in mid to late January, the meteorological winter tends to be centered on the coldest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
The end of November also marks the end of the official hurricane season in the North Atlantic basin, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Since this just concluding season was active, with several major hurricanes, we will consider the 2000 hurricane season in greater detail in a Supplemental Summary next week.
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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2000, The American Meteorological Society.