August Was Surprisingly The World's 15th Consecutive Hottest Month

Another red planet map from NOAA as August was
the world's 15th consecutive hottest month. Anything
in pink or red is warmer than the long term average.

 Experts have continually told us that a long streak of global record hottest months would come to an end as El Nino faded, to be gradually replaced by a cooler La Nina atmospheric and ocean pattern. 

Some said the record streak should have ended by now. 

Well, the August data is coming in, and that long record streak is unexpectedly persisting. 

According to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, August, 2024 was the world's hottest. And since the previous two months also set record highs, the Northern Hemisphere summer was also the hottest in at least 175 years.  That 175 years is the period in which pretty accurate global records are available. 

If you are under the age of 46, you  have never experienced a global year that was even a tiny bit cooler than the long term historical average.

Given that the first eight months of 2024 year each were the hottest on record, there is now a 97 percent chance this year will be the globe's hottest, besting the incredible level reached in 2023.

The hottest areas, relative to average in August were most of Antarctica, most of Australia, eastern Asia, southern Europe, northern Africa, northern Mexico and the southwestern United States; north-central Canada, northern Scandinavia and western Siberia. 

In all, about 10 percent of Earth's surface had a record hot August. which is a pretty remarkable percentage when talking about world-wide, long term comparisons to average. Whatever that is nowadays. 

Once again, it was hard to find cool spots in all that global heat in August. An area of the northern Pacific  between Alaska and Russia was chilly. Parts of southern South America and a piece of western Russia were near or a little cooler than normal. 

Central Africa's temperatures managed to be normal or even a bit cool in a few spots, at least by modern standards. But that was due mostly to excessive rains in that region. 

For the summer as a whole, June 1 through August 31, the world -  as mentioned - had the hottest summer on record. And yes, I know it was winter in the southern hemisphere, but let's call it summer since that's what we experience up here in the northern half of the world.

The past 11 June-August periods have been the warmest such periods on record. The only place on Earth that I could find that had a noticeably cool June-August was the southern tip of South America. 

Climate change will keep monthly global temperatures wicked high for the indefinite future. Experts still think the long stretch of monthly record highs will end, at least temporarily. We'll just probably keep seeing top 10 hottest months, not necessarily ones that score at Number One. We hope anyway 

El Nino, which tends to warm the Earth even more on top of climate change, has indeed ended. But the opposite La Nina, which has a slight cooling effect, hasn't really kicked in yet. That should happen in the final months of this year. 

But that won't be much of a break, since we're already so much warmer than in pre-industrial times. And gawd knows what will happen when in a few years, we get the inevitable next El Nino.