2012 was the warmest year on record in New Jersey, and a pattern of above normal temperatures is expected to continue into 2013.

November 2012 was the only time in 22 months that temperatures in the Garden State were not above the long-term average.

State climatologist Dave Robinson says it was one of the top ten warmest years globally because of the so-called greenhouse effect.

“Some of this is natural variability, but what we’re doing to the environment, we meaning humans, is amplifying things a bit, making the warm warmest, maybe changing weather patterns, that’s something still under active investigation.”
 

Robinson says the position of the jet stream played a role.
 

“Last winter is stayed up along the Canadian-US border and didn’t allow much cold air in. Over the summer when the jet normally stays to the north it didn¹t have hardly any chance of sneaking down here to give us a breath of cooler aid so we had yet another very warm summer.”

Robinson anticipates the warm weather pattern will continue in 2013.

“It doesn¹t mean that every month is going to be above average. We’re going to have those fluctuations back and forth, but the warm is going to get warmer and the cold is going to get warmer through time.”