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This November Second Warmest On Record

BOSTON (CBS) - November is not typically one of the months that many New Englanders look forward to.

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It typically serves as the doorstep to a long winter.  The days grow much shorter, the leaves are off the trees and it is, on average, the cloudiest and wettest month of the entire year.

The sun is noticeably lower in the sky and it feels much less warm than the prior months.

This describes a typical November here in New England, but this November has been anything but typical.

With the end of October Nor'easter I think many of us were expecting the worst, winter had begun and the kids hadn't even said 'trick or treat' yet.

Well, winter's early tease turned out to be just that - a tease.

November has felt much more like April around here with warmer than normal days and flowers coming back into bloom, being tricked into thinking we had the shortest winter in history!

The numbers this month are staggering.

With less than three days to go, this November has all but locked up second place all time amongst the warmest Novembers in recorded history going back to the late 1800's.

The National Weather Service tells us that as of Sunday night the average temperature (day and night) this month stood at 49.6 degrees, officially tying us for 2nd place with November of 1948 and 1927.

We will almost certainly go a few notches higher than this with the forecasted temperatures being in the 60's over the last few days this month.

We do not have much chance at number one, which ocurred back in 1975.

The average temperature that November was 51.8 degrees. So when all is said and done, we will be able to say that this was the warmest November in 36 years.

We had just nine days that were below normal this month and they were marginal at best.

The greatest amount we were below the norm was just five degrees back on November 5th.

Contrast that with all the above normal days, eight of which were above normal by more than 10 degrees and you can see why this November will be historic.

Another amazing stat - Boston has only dipped to the freezing mark once thus far and it was brief.

On Thanksgiving morning, Boston dropped to 31 degrees around dawn before quickly rebounding above 32, more like October than November!

Nature is also responding in strange ways to this abnormal month.

The leaves in many locations stayed green and on the trees several weeks later than usual.

Flowers either never died or started to bloom again and even the insects have gotten a second life late this fall.  Viewers have complained of mosquitoes in their homes and winter moths as well.

So what does this mean for our upcoming winter?

That is, ultimately, the million dollar question.

Many experts still expect the colder air to arrive in the first few weeks of December, but whether it will stick around long or be accompanied by big snow amounts remains to be seen.

Going back through 120 years of records, we have had 49 above normal Novembers (temperatures) and only 13 of those were followed by above normal snowfall that season.

So just 13 times in 120 years have we had an above normal November combined with an above normal snowfall season.

And, when October and November are milder than normal (like this year) three out of every four winter seasons end up having above normal temperatures as well!!

You can follow Terry on Twitter at @TerryWBZ.

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