NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – September 2016 will go down in the record books as the warmest September on record since we began keeping track back in 1851. The record-warm September means 11 of the past 12 consecutive months dating back to October 2015 have set new monthly high-temperature records. Only June didn’t break its mark, although it was previously reported that it did. More on that a little farther down in the article.
September 2016 was the warmest by almost the thinnest of margins, 0.004 degrees Celsius (0.007 degrees Fahrenheit) above the previous September record in 2014. The largest area of above average temperatures was seen in the northern hemisphere with highest anomalies in the Eastern United States, the North Pole, Northern Europe, Egypt and in Russia. Overall the global temperature was about 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit above average.
Scientists caution that while individual monthly records are newsworthy, it’s more important to focus and study on longer term data to draw conclusions on climate trends that are occuring. The data was collected from about 6,300 meteorological stations from around the globe.
As mentioned earlier, only June 2016 didn’t break its record when looking at the data over the last 12 months. It was previously reported that it had, in fact broken the record, but additional analysis reveled the temperature difference to be 0.05 degrees Celsius lower than originally thought. This small change proved the difference between record breaking and not. Given the razor-thin margin this past September, expect further analysis to be done on that data as well. Only time will tell if the record will stand.