2010 was the fourth warmest U.S. summer on record!NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) confirmed this week that the summer of 2010 was, as expected and fully observed by many... HOT!
Published in NOAA's State of the Climate report and based on records dating back to 1895, the NCDC notes that although the entire country experienced the fourth warmest summer on record, three climate regions in the continuous United States had temperatures in the top five: the southeast (warmest), the central (third warmest) and the northeast (fourth warmest). Several cities broke summer temperature records, including New York, Philadelphia, Trenton, Wilmington, Tallahassee and Asheville.
Here are some highlights from the report:
NCDC's Climate Extremes Index (CEI) for summer 2010 was about one-and-a-half times its historical average
- The northeast climate region experienced its warmest January-August period with an average temperature more than 3.4°F above the long-term average
- The majority of the U.S. had above-average temperatures last month. No state experienced an average temperature significantly below its long-term average
- Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey each had their warmest year-to-date period and all of the Northeastern states ranked in the top ten percent of warmest periods on record
- Only Florida and Texas had below normal temperatures for the entire year so far
It should be noted that several weather forecasting models predict cooling in months and years ahead, so if you're like me and found this past summer difficult to deal with, relief might be in sight!
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