The heat felt during summer 2021 was the hottest on record in the United States, statistically tying with temperatures recorded during the 1936 Dust Bowl, federal climate scientists said Thursday.
Throughout the meteorological summer, temperatures across the continental United States averaged 74 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 2.6 degrees above average, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.
The temperatures experienced in summer 2021 technically exceed the heat of the 1936 Dust Bowl summer, but the difference of less than 0.01 of a degree makes it a statistical tie.
The droughts of the 1930s are considered the “drought of record” in the U.S. The environmental disaster stripped topsoil from millions of acres of land from Texas to Nebraska, sending farmers into bankruptcy and forcing millions from their homes.
A record 18.4% of the 48 states set new heat records. California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah most felt the heat with their warmest summer on record. Sixteen other states recorded this summer as one of their top five warmest.
With the average summer rainfall at 9.48 inches, it was also the eight-wettest summer on record. Mississippi, Alabama, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York saw the most precipitation.
August was both the 14th-warmest month ever recorded in United States history and the 14th-wettest.
Triple-digit temperatures plagued much of the West Coast, with the Northwest recording records well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for several days.
NOAA’s climate records date back 127 years to 1894. The agency will publish a global climate report later this month.
“In a world where climate conditions grow steadily more extreme, that unparalleled disaster could become far more common,” Nathaniel Scharping wrote for Yale Environment 360 earlier this year.
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