Warm U.S. September Pushes Much Of Nation Toward Warmest Year Records

A mostly orange temperature ranking map for the
United States in September shows it was 
yet another unusually warm month. 

 Yesterday, I posted that preliminary data was showing that on a global basis, September will likely be by far the warmest on record.     

We don't have the final numbers for the entire world yet to confirm this. That should come within a week or so. But on Tuesday, another confirming piece of evidence came in. It was the  September data for the U.S., and to nobody's surprise, the stats came in warm. 

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information said that for the Lower 48, we had our seventh warmest September on record. Do note that just because the United States didn't quite have its warmest September doesn't mean the world as a whole can't. The U.S. comprises just 1.867  percent of the world's surface. The other 98.133 percent of the world will control the rankings. 

In the U.S. two states, New Mexico and Texas, has their hottest September on record. Eleven states, including here in Vermont had one of their top ten warmest Septembers. (Vermont overall ranked as third warmest September).

The warmth was oddly widespread across the United States. Usually a few regions end up on the cool side. In September some states in the Southeast and West were near average, but nobody had a cool September. 

Precipitation for the United States as a whole was kind of lacking.  It was the 22nd driest out of the past 129 years of records. Three states - Nevada, New Jersey and Connecticut - had one of their top three wettest Septembers. Ohio, Indiana and Michigan had one of their top ten driest. 

The warm months have really been piling up across the nation in 2023 and that is really showing. A whopping 30 states, including Vermont, have had one of their top 10 warmest January-September. This year in Vermont is so far running at third warmest on record. 

I imagine most of these states will end up having one of their top ten warmest years in 2023.

For what it's worth, the National Weather Service long range outlook has equal chances of warmer or cooler than normal weather for the middle of the U.S. But they forecast a warmer than average final three months of the year in the western and eastern U.S., especially in the Pacific Northwest and New England. 

Those long range forecasts aren't always right, but they do seem to indicate warm times ahead. 

Climate change and El Nino are doing their thing to keep the U.S. oddly toasty, just as the two phenomena are doing for the rest of the world.