United States Was Warm In July, But Not As Out Of Whack As Rest Of World

Early data suggests on a world-wide basis, July, 2023 will take the prize as the Earth's hottest month on record. I'm awaiting more data to confirm that.  

State by state temperature rankings for July, 2023
The number 129 denotes the hottest on record.
If there were any states with a zero, that would be 
coldest on record. But the chilliest state relative
to average, North Dakota, only had its 27th
coldest July out of the past 129. 

But at least we got some info on the United States as a while: The verdict: The U.S. experienced its eleventh warmest July on record. The data comes from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

Most of the heat was concentrated in the West, Southwest, Texas, Florida and New England. Arizona, New Mexico, Florida and Maine all set statewide records for the hottest month on record. Phoenix, Arizona set the record for the hottest mean monthly temperature on record for any place in the United States. The average Phoenix July temperature was 102.2 degrees.

The central and northern Plains were just a touch cooler than average, but it certainly wasn't among the chilliest Julys on record there.  

I know we had an incredibly wet July here in New England, but for the nation as a whole, July was pretty average for rainfall.  A sodden month in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest were offset by arid conditions in much of the West and parts of the Northern Plains. 

Here in Vermont - as you know - we had an, um, exciting month of July in the weather department. We had our third hottest July on record for the state as a whole, and the second wettest July on record.  I think we didn't make it into the #1 position as wettest month because parts of the Champlain Valley and extreme southeast Vermont were only sort of wet, not record soggy. 

ODD STORMINESS 

The spring severe thunderstorm, tornado and hail season in the United States tends to wane a fair amount by the time we get into later June and July. Not this year. 

The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang recently reported that the United States in July, 2023 had the most severe weather reports of any July on record.

That's just in recent years, though, as this severe weather data only goes back to 2004.  Still, the 6,637 July reports of thunderstorm wind damage, gusts over 58 mph, tornadoes and large hail far exceed the previous record of 5,642 in 2016, WaPo reports.

Hail reports were especially striking in July, 2023. Big hail is a creature of the spring, when colder air in the atmosphere is better able to manufacture large hailstones.  However, July had a record number of reports of nasty hail.   There were no fewer than 188 reports of hail at least the size of hens eggs.

I don't know exactly how significant this new record is. It's possible more members of the public are reporting instances of severe weather. But it's obvious July was stormier than it normally is.  

The severe weather, as we know, has continued into August.  As reported earlier, more than 1,000 reports of severe storm wind damage came in just on Monday. Through Thursday, August already had more than 2,500 United States severe weather reports, and the month isn't even half over.  

It's been a stormy United States year anyway. 

Three new billion dollar weather disasters, two in June, one in April,  have been confirmed in the United States, bringing the nation's total to 15 for the year. That's a record for just this far into the year, and these records ARE adjusted for inflation. 

The flood calamity that hit Vermont and surrounding states is still being assessed, so that has not yet been included in the billion dollar disaster list. It probably will be, though. 

New data due within the next few days will confirm that July was globally the hottest month on record.  I'll have an update when these new figures become available. 

March Was World's Second Warmest On Record

Almost all of the world was warmer than the
long term average, once again, in March
2023.  It was the world's second warmest
March on record. Small photo, so click
on the image to make it bigger and
easier to see. 

 As we do monthly, we always check the world's monthly temperature when the number crunchers complete their work. So now we have the March, 2023 global data.

The month was the world's second warmest. Only March, 2016 was warmer. All eight of the past eight Marches were in the top ten warmest. 

The other top 10 warmest March readings were in 2002 and 2010.  The records go back to 1850 or so.  

The March, 2023 departure from the 20th century average was the third highest for any month, just behind February and March, 2016.

For those of you keeping track, the last time the world had a March that was at least a smidge cooler than normal was in 1976. That means if you are under the age of 47, you've never seen a global March that was cooler than average.

NOAA's  National Centers for Environmental Information is already saying that 2023 is pretty much guaranteed to be among the top 10 warmest years on record and stands an excellent chance of being among the top five.

We've shifted out of a La Nina pattern of cool water in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which tends to try to cool the Earth a little. We're going into an El Nino, which tends to increase global temperatures. That means 2023 stands a chance at being the hottest year on record. 

In March, 2023, the places that appeared to be warmest in March relative to the long term average were much of the Arctic, especially in northern Canada, northeastern Canada, pretty much all of Asia except Southeast Asia, parts of eastern Europe, southern South America and much of Antarctica. 

The only places in the world that were on the cool side were the western United States, southwestern and south central Canada, an area of Pacific ocean southwest of South America, Iceland and an area of the Arctic north and northwest of Scandinavia. 

Overall the United States sat out the global warmth of March, 2023.  The Gulf Coast and the East Coast from Florida to New England were warm, but the western third of the United States was chilly.  Out of 130 years of record, this was the 45th coolest March in the contiguous U.S. 

Oregon had its third coldest March on record. California, Nevada and North Dakota had their fifth coldest March.  Florida managed to have its eighth warmest March

Here in Vermont, we had our 30th warmest March out of the past 130.

 Judging in part from epic heat waves that have already hit parts of China, southeastern Asia and the northeastern United States, April is sure to come in as one of the world 's top 10 hottest, and likely one of the top 5.

Global Hot November And A Cool Political Change

Climate change continues apace, as new November data
shows. But at least Joe Biden is poised to put us
on the correct team to battle it. 

I was a bit distracted by last week's epic snowstorm in southern Vermont and elsewhere, so I never did get into the monthly check on global temperatures, which came out last week. 

The global analysis was for November, and unfortunately, did not contain any surprises.  Unfortunately, because the heat stayed on. 

Out of past 141 Novembers in the global database, this year's was the second hottest on record on a global basis. Only November, 2015 was marginally warmer. 

The data was compiled by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

The world's ten warmest Novembers have happened since 2004 and the top five have occurred since 2013, so we are having hot times due to climate change.  

Relative to normal, the warmest places on Earth during November, 2020 were northern Russia, Australia, a good chunk of South America, the eastern two thirds of the United States, the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. 

Even with a warm globe, there's inevitably cool spots. Those were in northwestern Asia, a spot in the North Atlantic and especially the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean off of South America.

That last spot is especially worth noting. That cool eastern Pacific air and water is a sign that the La Nina weather pattern is in full swing.  La Nina overall tends to suppress global temperatures a bit, so it is alarming we managed to have the second warmest November with a La Nina. 

The opposite, a warming in the Pacific call El Nino, tends to warm the world a bit overall. 

Overall, it looks like 2020 will be the second hottest year on record, after 2016, which I believe had an El Nino.  There's even a chance this year could be THE hottest, depending upon how December goes.

CLIMATE CHANGE TEAM COMING TO WHITE HOUSE

President-Elect Joe Biden certainly has a different approach to climate change than outgoing President Trump. 

Trump has famously called climate change a hoax and pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord. 

Getting back into the Paris agreement will apparently be rather easy.  Biden has pledged to get back into it his first day on the job, January 21.

Biden is also assembling a climate focused team. As NPR reports:

"Biden announced his intention to nominate Rep. Deb Haaland, D-NM to serve as secretary of the interior; former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to head the Department of Energy; Michael Regan as EPA administrator; Brenda Mallory as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality: Gina McCarthy as national climate advisor and Ali Zaidi as deputy national climate advisory."

Additionally, we know that Biden as nominated Pete Buttigieg a transportation secretary, and it appears he will be active in promoting green technology in our transportation infrastructure. 

While Biden can reverse a number of Trump's anti-climate policies through executive orders, his administration will have a tough time fighting Republican efforts to thwart these policies. That's especially true in the likely event that the January Georgia Senate runoff seats one or two Republicans rather that Democrats. 

The Biden administration also will be unable to stop climate change, or even mitigate it to any huge degree.  But at least with the new administration, the United States will at least be on the right team.