34th and 35th Consecutive Warm Weeks Continue U.S. Hot Trend Into 9th Month

August 14 Update: The preliminary National Climatic Data Center analysis shows that the U.S. national average temperature was 1.9° above normal in the past week, with the month-to-date average 1.7° above. For the first time in 10 weeks, the East North-Central region was below average at -1.0°.

Original post:
CapitalClimate analysis of preliminary reports from 215 National Weather Service stations across the 48 contiguous states shows that the unadjusted U.S. national average temperature was 1.4° above climatological normal for the week ending yesterday, August 11. Thanks to some cooling in the Midwest and Southeast, this was down somewhat from the record 3.3° for the month of July. However, the past 2 weeks are the 34th and 35th consecutive weeks of above-average temperatures. With August now one-third over, every single week so far in 2012 has been warmer than climatology. The last cool week ended 8 months ago, on December 10.

Of the 215 locations, 63% were above average, vs. 88% the previous week. All of the 9 National Climatic Data Center climate regions have been warmer than average for each of the 5 weeks through August 4.

Images (click to enlarge):
- Weekly average U.S. temperature departures from normal, weeks ending June 4, 2011 (20110604) through August 11, 2012 (20120811); CapitalClimate chart from NOAA/NCDC data
- Weekly average NWS station temperature departures from normal, weeks ending August 4 and August 11, 2012; stations listed alphabetically by state and 3-character station identifier; CapitalClimate charts from NWS data
- Average U.S. temperature departure from normal for August 5-11, 2012 from High Plains Regional Climate Center