2012 Temperatures – One For the Record Books | Resilient Design Institute

2012 Temperatures – One For the Record Books | Resilient Design Institute

For those who have made a habit of following temperature records over the past few decades, what’s most surprising with today’s news isn’t that 2012 set a record for U.S. temperatures (that had been expected for months), but rather the extent of that record.
If you go back to the beginning of systematic record-keeping for the lower-48 states in 1895 until last year, the difference between the record-low (1917) and the record-high (1998) was 4.2°F. That temperature span jumped a full degree Fahrenheit with the 2012 record temperature. The average temperature in the contiguous U.S. in 2012 was 55.3°F, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), dramatically beating the previous record of 54.3, and exceeding the 20th century average by an amazing 3.3°F.
At weather stations around the country, 34,008 daily high-temperature records were set in 2012, compared to just 6,664 daily low-temperature records. In a normal year, those record highs and lows would be roughly balanced.
You have to go way back to 1985 (28 years ago) to find a single month (February) when the average U.S. temperature was below the 20th century average.
Nineteen states recorded their warmest year on record in 2012 and another 26 states recorded one of the ten warmest years on record. Only three states did not experience one of their ten warmest years (2012 was the 11th warmest for Georgia, 12th warmest for Oregon, and 30th warmest for Washington).
Nationally, July 2012 was the warmest month ever recorded in the history of the U.S.
Severe drought in 2012
Along with record temperatures, 2012 was exceptionally dry. Drought extended across 61% of the country, wreaking havoc on the nation’s grain belt. The average precipitation for the contiguous U.S. was 26.57 inches, 2.57 inches below normal, according to NOAA. That made 2012 the 15th driest on record, while two states—Nebraska and Wyoming—experienced record drought conditions.
Crop losses have already reached $35 billion and some experts project that total damages from drought in 2012 could top $100 billion, according to the reinsurance company Aon Benfield—perhaps even eclipsing the damages from Hurricane Sandy.
And don’t forget wildfires. Dry conditions in the West lead to wildfires, and 9.2 million acres were burned in 2012—the third highest in U.S. history.