Warmest Year On Record
Last year “marked the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States,” the National Climatic Data Center just confirmed.
This probably won’t surprise many, but “a record warm spring, second-warmest summer, fourth-warmest winter and a warmer-than-average autumn” combined to make the year’s average temperature 55.3°F.
That’s “3.2°F above the 20th century average, and 1.0°F above 1998, the previous warmest year.”
And 2012 was also “a historic year for extreme weather that included drought, wildfires, hurricanes and storms,” the data center points out. It notes, though, that “tornado activity was below average.”
