Summit County Citizens Voice

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. (more…)

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 | 2 Comments »