The U.S. Hits a Never-Before-Seen Milestone for Warmth

Though you might not know it living in Caribou, Maine, things in the U.S. have been pipin’ hot. The mercury went above 100 in California last week, Texas has endured weeks of temperatures as much as 6 degrees above normal, and Alaska is likely to soon mark its warmest January-April period in known history.

Every state in the Lower 48, in fact, had above-average temperatures last month, making it the fourth-warmest March in 122 years of annals-keeping. But here’s another remarkable thing: Every one of NOAA’s hundreds of climate divisions saw abnormal heat in March, something that hasn’t happened since monitoring began more than eight decades ago.