May Was Yet World's 12th Consecutive Record Hottest Month; June Could Do It Again

Lots of red in the world temperature map for May 
Shades of red represent warmer than average areas
and the darkest red is record warmest in those locations.

 Catching up with climate statistics I had to note that climatologists think June could well be the warmest on record.  

This might be even more surprising than May's global performance as the world's 12th consecutive hottest month.

May beat the previous record set in 2020 by about a third of a degree Fahrenheit. That doesn't sound like much at all, but when you compile all the world's data, that amounts to a huge margin above the previous record level.

El Nino teamed up with climate change to boost global temperature to new heights.  El Nino heats up the eastern Pacific Ocean, and tends to make the world's overall temperature a little warmer. 

El Nino has been crashing fast, to be replaced by La Nina, which tends to cool the world's atmosphere just a little. 

So far, we haven't seen that.  There's usually a lag in which the subtle La Nina cooling begins. Climatologists are starting to tap their feet and check their watches nervously as that hasn't happened yet. 

The scientists for now are still convinced months during the second half of 2024 won't keep breaking monthly records for the world. But there's no question the heat is on forever, even if some months "only" score in the top 10 warmest.

With La Nina in the picture, there's "only" a 50/50 shot at 2024 becoming the world's hottest year on record, besting 2023, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.

We won't know until we get into July whether the current month ended up breaking the record for hottest June, obviously set just last year.

But we know May solidly broke the world record. Almost nobody on the planet had a cool May. The only pockets of "chill",  at least relative to the heat of recent years. Southern South America, western Russia, a few pockets in Antarctica, a couple areas of Greenland and a small dot in the western United States were a little on the cool side. 

If you are under the age of 48, you've never seen a May in which the overall world temperature was even a teeny, tiny bit cooler than the long term average. 

By the way, as May was the 12th consecutive record hot month, the oceans had their 14th consecutive record hot water month in May. 

With each month through May at record levels, the world as a whole had its warmest January-May stretch on record. 

The United States had its 13th warmest May out of the past 130 years.

Florida had its warmest May on record. Thirteen other states, including Vermont had one of their top 10 warmest Mays in 2024,