NOAA News || NOAA Home Page || Previous story June 16, 2000

July 14, 2000 — June 2000 was warmer than normal but nowhere near a record for the United States, according to statistics calculated by NOAA's scientists working from the world's largest statistical weather database. The electronic data base at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., goes back through 106 years of record keeping.

June was the 33rd warmest and 14th wettest such month since 1895. It was the third warmest June on record for Nevada. States in the Central and Southern Rocky Mountains to the West Coast experienced a considerably warmer June than average as compared to all Junes in 106 years of record keeping. Eight states along the Mississippi Valley and the South region had unusually cool Junes. It was the 18th driest (in 106 years) June on record for Idaho. June was the fifth wettest such month for Oklahoma and sixth wettest June on record for New Mexico.

January-June 2000 was the warmest first half of the year on record. It was the warmest such six-month period on record for New Mexico and the second warmest for Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and Texas. Every state in the contiguous U.S., except Georgia and South Carolina, was within the warmest-third of all years. The six-month period was also the third driest year-to-date for Florida. Nine other states were within the driest-third for the year. It was the second wettest year-to-date for New York; 18 other states ranked within the wettest third. For the nation, January-June 2000 was near the long-term average ranking as the 44th driest such period since 1895.

In addition to NOAA's surface data, satellite data provided by scientists at NASA and the Global Hydrology and Climate Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville indicated the presence of slightly warmer than normal temperatures in the lower half of the atmosphere (lowest 8km or 26,200 feet of the atmosphere) over the U.S. The Microwave Sounding Unit on-board NOAA's TIROS-N polar-orbiting satellite measured warmer than normal temperatures during June. The average lower tropospheric temperature over the continental U.S. was 0.61F above the 1979-1998 long-term mean for June.
For the Globe:

Global temperatures in June 2000 were again above the long term mean and ranked as the tenth warmest such period since 1880. The global (Land and Ocean) temperature was 0.52F (0.29C) above the 1880-1999 long-term mean, 0.09F (0.05C) cooler than in 1999 while the average sea surface temperature was 0.41F (0.23C) above the long term mean. The land surface temperature was 0.77F (0.43C) above the long-term mean, 0.32F (0.18C) below the 1999 value. June temperatures for both the land surface temperature as well as the sea surface temperature each ranked as the tenth warmest June on record.

For the period January through June, global temperatures were again well above the long term mean. The average land surface temperature was 1.42F (0.79C) above the 1880-1999 long term mean and was tied for the third warmest Jan-June period. The extremely warm land surface temperatures combined with above average sea surface temperatures resulted in a land/sea average anomaly of 0.76F (0.42C) above the long term mean which tied for the fifth warmest. The ocean anomaly was 0.49F (0.27C) above the long term mean which tied 1990 and 1996 for seventh warmest.

The statistics for June and the year-to-date are online at:
Climate of 2000: June in Historical Perspective

Media Contact:
Patricia Viets, NOAA Satellite Service, (301) 457-5005.