April showers and cool temperatures brought drought relief to many areas across the United States, but conditions worsened in the Southwest.
Winter storms in February improved drought in the Southeast and Midwest, but well below average precipitation in parts of the West in recent months has worsened drought in other places.
January 2013 was the 37th consecutive January and 335th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th-century average. The last below-average January was in 1976.
Despite several snowstorms associated with cold-air outbreaks, average January temperatures across the contiguous United States weren’t especially cold according to the latest statistics from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. Although the average temperature was spot-on freezing—32.0° Fahrenheit—that was still 1.6° Fahrenheit warmer than the twentieth-century January average.
Although 2012 warmth did not top the charts, it was the third warmest “La Niña year” on record.
The average temperature for the contiguous United States for 2012 was 55.3° Fahrenheit, which was 3.2° Fahrenheit above the twentieth-century average and 1.0° Fahrenheit above the previous record from 1998.
The average global temperature for November 2012 was the fifth warmest November since record keeping began in 1880.
The November nationally averaged precipitation total of 1.19 inches was nearly an inch below the long-term average, making this the eighth driest November on record.