Much of U.S. had golf and shorts weather in January

NEW YORK – Let’s put it this way: People played golf this winter in Maine. In shorts.

Buttercups have been blooming in Montana. In Ohio, an ice-free Lake Erie allowed an early start to seasonal ferry service. And the sap started running early in Vermont.

While January plunged much of Europe and Russia into the deep freeze, it appeared to be remarkably mild across the United States. Federal scientists haven’t calculated yet whether it ranks as the warmest January on record nationwide, but “it’s certainly going to be right up there,” said Michael Halpert, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center.

The balmy weather will soon end for much of the country, he said.

Just how warm was January?

* Warmest on record in Oklahoma; South Dakota; Green Bay, Wis.; Kansas City, Mo.; Riverton, Wyo.; and Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Neb. It barely missed tying the record for Iowa.

* Second-warmest in Maine and in Milwaukee, Wis.

* Third-warmest in Memphis, Tenn., and Detroit.

* Fourth-warmest in New York’s Central Park (tied with January 1913), in Greensboro, N.C., and Louisville, Ky.

* Eighth-warmest in Denver, and the warmest since 1986.

* 10th warmest in Baltimore.

* 12th warmest in New Mexico.

For much of the nation, however, meteorologist Halpert says the warm weather is on its way out.

“Probably by next week we will be seeing much colder weather over the eastern half to two-thirds of the country,” he said Wednesday. The West will probably remain warm on average, he said.

The warmth was caused by the unusual position of the jet stream, the high-altitude river of air that flows west-to-east across North America. It divides warm air from cold, with colder temperatures to its north and warmer temperatures to its south.

Usually in the winter, it follows a lazy zigzag across the United States and Canada, allowing cold air into the U.S. where it dips south, Halpert said. But for the past month or so, it has instead flowed east in almost a straight line across the northern part of the country, basically forming a fence that has kept cold air out and allowed in milder air from the Pacific Ocean.