Yes, It has been confirmed. July marked the Earth’s hottest month in modern times, or at least since temperature data started being recorded in 1880. NOAA also confirmed that July was not just the record hottest July on record, but it was the hottest month ever recorded.
According to NOAA, 2016 is on track to be the warmest year-to-date so far as records go, and it also shows how much global temperatures have risen over the last century as they inch slowly closer to the 1.5 degrees Celsius pre-industrial revolution mark. The actual average global temperature was 0.87 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average.
July has always been the warmest month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere because there are more land masses above the Equator. Land masses heat quicker and further than the ocean can, and the Southern Hemisphere, because it has more oceans than land masses, doesn’t get as hot in the summer.
In a breakdown of specific regions of the world, compared to the July average, the south-central part of the U.S., including Texas and into Northern Mexico had more warm weather anomalies than usual for North America. Interestingly, close- to cooler-than-average temperatures were limited to the northwestern and north-central contiguous U.S., and eastern Canada.
Portions of western Russia and the Southern Ocean turned out to be the warmest, compared to average. And the wildfires and anthrax outbreak have been linked to the warmer temperatures in Russia. Record warm temperatures were recorded in parts of Indonesia, southern Asia, and New Zealand, while near to cooler temperatures were seen in parts of southern South America, southwestern Australia, north-central Russia, Kazakhstan and India.
And of course, we have been hearing the reports of the much-warmer-than-average conditions surrounding the Persian Gulf. And all the temperature anomalies have persisted while ENSO conditions remain in neutral, meaning there is neither El Nino or La Nina patterns being seen at this time.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center gives La Nina only a slight chance of developing by October 2016. There is a much better chance of La Nina developing (50 to 60 percent) during the fall and winter in the Northern Hemisphere, though.
Whenever the temperatures get this hot and stay hot for days on end, this writer is reminded of the movie “Good Morning, Vietnam,” starring Robin Williams. There is one scene where he is doing a take on the weather and is asked, “How hot is it?” He replies, “It’s hot, damned hot.”
