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June 2012 the 14th-warmest across Lower 48
Colorado was the nation’s hot spot in June. Map courtesy NOAA.
It was the driest June ever in Wyoming, while Colorado and Utah reported their second-driest Junes on record. Map courtesy NOAA.
By Summit Voice
SUMMIT COUNTY — Colorado was hot in June, and not just because of the destructive wildfires that scorched parts of the Front Range. The average statewide temperature for the month was 6.4 degrees above the historic average, making it the warmest June on record for the state.
Across the contiguous 48 states, the average temperature was 2 degrees above the 20th century average, making it the 14th warmest June on record. That was warm enough to make the first half of 2012 go down in the record books as the warmest first half of any year on record for the contiguous United States, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Visit the NCDC online for the full monthly report.
From another source, read Dr. Jeff Masters’ Wunderblog post on the recent heatwave.
The national temperature of 52.9 degrees for the six-month period was 4.5 degrees above average. Most of the contiguous U.S. was record and near-record warm for the six-month period, except the Pacific Northwest. Twenty-eight states east of the Rockies were record warm and an additional 15 states were top ten warm. At least 170 high temperature records were tied or broken for the month.
June heat was centered over the Intermountain West and the Central Plains, with cooler than average readings in the Pacific Northwest and parts of the Southeast.
Month by month temperature anomalies for the five warmest years on record in the contiguous 48 states. Graph courtesy NOAA.
Large parts of Colorado experienced record-breaking heat with a large high-pressure area persisting over the state during the second half of the month. Denver reached 105 degrees on June 25 and 26, tying the all-time (since 1872) annual maximum previously reached in July 2005 and August 1878.
Denver saw six days with temps exceeding 100 degrees in June, breaking the previous record of three days set in 1990.
Colorado Springs also notched its all-time annual record high at 101 F on June 26; records at that location date back to 1895. The monthly average temperatures in Denver (75 degrees), Colorado Springs, (73.2 degrees), and Pueblo (77 degrees) set new June records at their respective locations.
Cheyenne, Wyoming experienced its second warmest average June temperature on record at 67.9 degrees, only 0.1 degrees behind the record of 68 degrees set in 2006 based on records going back to 1872.
Farther south, Phoenix, Arizona recorded a monthly average of 93.8 degrees, the second-warmest June in a record dating back to 1895.
Information compiled from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, State of the Climate: National Overview for June 2012, published online July 2012, retrieved on July 9, 2012 from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/6.
Filed under: climate and weather, Colorado, global warming Tagged: | Intermountain West, June 2012 temperature records, June heat wave, June temperatures Colorado, National Climatic Data Center, state of the climate report June 2012
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Powder's falling at Monarch!! Have you reserved your spot yet?
Innovative energy underwrites coverage of energy stories.
Everything is fine. As soon as the polar caps melt we can drill there too. Cut down boreal forests, dig up tar sands, mix ‘em up with good fresh water, and slurry it all down the mainline. Ohhh yeah baby, that’s the stuff. If that vein’s a little shot, move over to the next one, or the next one. I’m on a high baby! I’m never coming down! Bakken! Utica! Niobrara!
WE need to accept incinerating forests and drought because to do otherwise would prove inconvenient to the continued massive profits of the Fossil Fuel and Power barons.
We got enough coff-coff-coal for hundreds of years–which will be generations especially if we lower the life span a bit through more dirty air.
More oil shale that Prince whats-his-name over there of whatever emirate that is where they got so much oil. All we have to do is dig up or poke heaters into 16,000 square miles, plug up the CO River, and use the Green to cool the new nuke plant, and its like too cheap to meter at the pump. Or something. We need co2 for life. What do you have against greenhouses?