2005 has been a warm year for us. But the month of December has gone its own direction.

Through Christmas, the month of December is averaging 4.4 degrees below normal in temperature.

Anything more than a couple of degrees either way is a significant departure. So this could be called a very cold month.

But, interestingly, it didn't get to be a very cold month by having a lot of very cold temperatures. In Roanoke's case, the temperature has been no colder than 21 on any day this month. We had a low of 8 degrees once amid a warmer-than-normal December a year ago.

Instead, this month has averaged so far below normal through persistence rather than extremes. Before three warmer-than-normal days on the 23rd through the 25th, we had only one day of above-average temperature through the first 22 days of the month, but only five of those days were more than 10 degrees below normal. We've had only one day with a high below freezing.

Contrast that to the way our year began. January, which ended up 4.7 degrees above normal, began with 13 of its first 14 days being 11 degrees or more above normal, seven of which were 20 or more degrees above normal with one as much as 30 degrees above normal.

That's extreme warmth, and were it not offset by a colder-than-normal second half of January that included seven days 10 or more degrees below normal, it would have easily been our warmest January on record.

January's blazing start was appropriate for a year that has seen nine of its 12 months average above normal in temperature, including six months averaging at least 2 degrees above normal.

January led the way at 4.7 degrees above normal, but February, August, September, October and November were also at least 2 degrees above normal in temperature. Furthermore, July and August featured Roanoke's warmest average low temperatures on record for those months.

But a cold spring (March was 3.1 degrees below normal, May 1.9 degrees below normal and April only 0.6 above normal with a cold spell late in the month) and a very cold December will likely be enough to keep 2005 from being among our few warmest years on record.

With some more days rising into the 50s this week, December's average temperature might go up another degree or two, but it is likely to finish below normal.

So why the strange temperature pattern in 2005? The early part of the year was dominated by a roaring jet stream out of the Pacific that brought in some extremely unseasonable subtropical air. Summer and fall were controlled alternately by a large dome of high pressure and by a juicy tropical season, the former bringing hot, dry weather and the latter bringing warm, humid weather.

That left only spring and now December for the colder stuff to work its way down to us as the jet stream buckled southward.

So we began warm, and we end cold. And that means little or nothing for how things will go in 2006.