7.10.12 NOAA: The Hottest We've Ever Seen - FOX44 - Burlington / Plattsburgh News, Weather & Sports

7.10.12 NOAA: The Hottest We've Ever Seen

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, just released data to show the last 12 months to be the hottest on record for the United States.  During that time, the average temperature for the country was 56.0°, which is +3.2° compared to the long-term average.

This and the following two pictures are courtesy NOAA/CDC/NESDIS

These bars show the temperature difference during the 12 month time periods.  The far right bar is from July 2012 to June 2011, which narrowly beat out the previous 12-month departure from the last monthly update (June) and the one prior too (May).

Every month agencies within NOAA gather data and release the numbers of how states/cities ranked in terms of precipitation and temperature compared to average. They do this to find trends and use it for climate data in the future.

The red state of Colorado saw its warmest June on record. The higher the number, the warmer that month was compared to average. NOAA color coordinates it as well with the blue states showing below average temperatures.  Our region saw New York ranking 71, Vermont ranking 76, and NH 66. These aren't very impressive, but show a slightly above average temperature reading.

New England saw some nice rain which helped any drought that was forming from earlier this year. However a big part of the country saw very dry conditions, in which Wyoming saw its driest June on record. As of early July, 56% of the lower 48 is in a drought.

Here are some stats from the temperatures again:

• June 2012 Average Temperature: 71.2°
• Departure from 'climate average': +2.0°
• 170 all-time record highs were broken
• Temperatures of 113° in South Carolina and 112° in Georgia are being investigated whether they are valid. If they stand, it would make new state records for both locations.
• There were a few cool spots, the Pacific Northwest was cooler and much wetter than average

Locally, Burlington continued its streak of above-average temperatures in June. Fifteen months in a row, Burlington has had warmer-than-average temperatures. We'll see if July pulls through.

If you're reading this and adding this as ammo for global warming guns, don't do so just yet. In journalism we try to get both sides. While the country has been very warm, other parts of the world are seeing cold weather compared to normal.

If you ever want the complete opposite side of global warming, follow Joe Bastardi on Twitter. I'm not sure if he works for Accuweather anymore but I know he did.

https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi

Let me give you an example of a tweet I saw from early today:

"No matter how much climate clowns scream and yell, you cant escape the fact global temps have leveled off and are turning down"

 He's put pictures such as this on-line showing global concentrations of CO2 decreasing.

*There is a correction I need to make to this graph above* It should say Mauna Loa at the top. The meteorologists at the Nat'l Weather Service in Burlington informed me that there is a monitoring station atop the big island of Hawaii, measuring CO2 at 10,000 feet above sea level. Apparently this has been getting measured for the last 60 years! I logged onto

http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/datasets/mauna/welcome.html

to look at the observatory up there. CO2 has definitely been on the rise since the obs have been taken. I'll have to dig into this more and learn some more about it before posting any more info. I'm not sure where Bastardi's image came from though.  Feel free to cruise through that site!

-Meteorologist Steve Glazier

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