August 2020 was the second-hottest across the globe, according to NOAA

Our Augusts are warming across the Earth, continuing a 22-year trend

August 2020 was the second-hottest on record globally (WSLS)

Asheville, N.C. – Following the second-hottest July on record globally, NOAA has released their climate report for August and it’s another month for the record books!

Scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) say that global land and ocean surface temperatures were 1.69 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average. This comes in as the second-hottest August on record, just behind August 2016.

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One of the most amazing, but sobering stats they included in the report? All of the top 10 hottest Augusts on records have happened since 1998.

The report also includes stats for meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere and details about the continued decline of Arctic sea ice.

For a local perspective, we recapped southwest and central Virginia’s hot and wet summer in last week’s weather newsletter.