Arkansas residents had to shed their jackets and pull out their summer wardrobes early this year as the state experienced record-breaking temperatures for the month of March.

This March was hot for much of the Southeast, and that is especially true for Arkansas with March 2012 going down in history as the warmest March ever recorded, according to Jeff Baskin, chief meteorologist for FOX16 News. Baskin said the daytime highs averaged 76.2 degrees, which is 12 degrees above the usual average high for March. The average monthly temperature was 11 degrees above average, at 64.3 degrees.

Many students whose homes are outside of the southern United States said they are not accustomed to the warm spring weather. Junior Brooke Durgin said even after being in Searcy for three years she has a hard time adjusting to the hot temperatures.

“This warm weather is strange for me because I’m from Maine and at home, it snows in March,” Durgin said.

Most students are able to adapt to the unpredictable weather of Arkansas, but this warm spell was especially surprising. Junior Allison Lincoln said she wonders what the summer will be like if it is so warm already.

“I’m from Nashville, so I’m used to the up-and-down weather,” Lincoln said. “It has been really hot, though. We never really had a winter, so we went from sometimes cold to blazing hot.”

According to Chad Garneau, meteorologist for FOX16 News, the only year during which a warm spring led to a scorching summer in Little Rock was 2010. In other years, none of the warmest spring months were in the same year as the hottest summers recorded. So a warm spring does not necessarily predict a hot summer.

Senior John Shrable, TV16 weatherman, said Arkansas also broke records last spring with the amount of storms the state had.

“I remember last year when we were hit with a severe storm seemingly every weekend. That spring was also record-breaking for many areas of the South, just for very different reasons,” Shrable said.

According to Shrable, west Texas is still feeling the aftermath of last summer’s drought, but Arkansas looks like it is going to have a normal precipitation pattern, despite the warm weather the state has been having. Even though the weather has been warmer than usual, Arkansas can look forward to a nice summer, Shrable said.

“All in all this weather really isn’t looking bad right now,” Shrable said. “At least we can be grateful that we have not had as much severe weather as last year. I’m hoping this summer stays fairly moist and not too hot. Time will only tell.”

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