Photo: OLIVIER MORIN / AFP / Getty Images
(Miami, Fla) - According to NOAA's global climate report today August was the warmest in history.
August in the contiguous U.S. ranked ninth warmest on record.
Monitoring Section Chief with NOAA says 2016 still ranks as the warmest year on record, but 2023 is not far behind and could surpass it.
Parts of southern North America, including Florida, experienced record-warm temperatures in August.
Sea surface temperatures were above average across nearly 13% of the world's surface this August, which was the highest August percentage since the start of records in 1951.
For the fifth consecutive month, global ocean surface temperature hit a record high. El Niño conditions that emerged in June continued into August.
In addition to a record hot August, there have been 23 disasters so far this year, the most events during a calendar year. NOAA Monitoring Chief, Karin Gleason says eight newly identified events were added to the map this month including Hurricane Idalia and the Maui fire storm.
Gleason says the total cost of the disaster events this year exceeds $57.6 billion and has resulted in 253 direct and indirect fatalities.