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Powerful Pacific System Impacting the West; First Significant Snow for Portions of the East

Power Pacific system will continue to bring significant impacts for Pacific Northwest into northern California the remainder of the week. Dangerous coastal affects, heavy rain, flooding, strong winds, and higher elevation mountain snow continues. Meanwhile, a storm across the east is set to bring the first accumulating snow to many higher elevations of the Catskills into the central Appalachians. Read More >

Overview

"Three-sentence summary" for Dec. 2016: December featured near-to-slightly above normal precipitation across the majority of our 30-county coverage area, most of which fell in the form of rain and not snow!  Temperature-wise, most of the area averaged out 1.0 to 2.5º below normal for the month (slightly below normal). However, roughly the first 3 weeks of the month actually averaged well-below normal, before the final 12 days or so turned considerably milder.

Pleaser refer to the various images/tables in this story for, among other things:

1) a quick glance at Dec. 2016 precipitation and specific totals for several official NWS stations across the area
2) Dec. 2016 monthly temperature/precipitation "departure from normal" maps for both Nebraska and Kansas
3) specific detailed Dec. 2016 information for Grand Island and Hastings airports (our two primary climate data sites for which we routinely issue information/records)
4) past-12-months temperature/precipitation tables specifically for Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney, Ord and Smith Center KS
 

This information focuses on climate and weather highlights across the NWS Hastings coverage area, encompassing 24 counties in south central/central Nebraska, and 6 counties in north central Kansas. Click here for a map of this coverage area. The temperature and precipitation data presented here are largely based on the NWS Cooperative Observer network, along with data from a handful of automated airport sites. All climate averages and "normals" presented here are based on the official NCEI 1981-2010 normals.

2016 Nebraska Cooperative Observer Precipitation Tables
2016 Kansas Cooperative Observer Precipitation Tables

Image
This graphic features a precipitation map for Dec. 2016, along with a partial listing of totals from official NWS stations. Click image to enlarge.
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