Chalk up another monthly temperature record: This was the warmest September globally in 134 years of data, new NASA numbers indicate. The average temperature on Earth was 58.6 degrees F (14.77 C) — surpassing the 2005 mark and 1.39 degrees F (0.77 C) above the 1951-1980 average for September, according to NASA’s monthly Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index. That follows a record month in August, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. Weather.com noted that 2014 has the potential to be the world’s hottest on record.
But in the U.S., this was only the 26th warmest September in 120 years of record keeping, the data center reported, with an average temperature of 66.2 degrees F, 1.3 F above average. There were some hot spots: California had its warmest January-September period ever; Hilo, Hawaii, hit 93 degrees F to break a monthly record that had stood since 1951; and Cold Bay, Alaska, had its warmest September ever. But a Sept. 10-11 storm set records for earliest snowfall in some spots in the Rockies and Dakotas.
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