Earth's Hot Times Continue Unabated; Keeps Getting Worse

March, 2016 was the hottest year, relative to
normal, of any month on record says NOAA.
The old record was set just a month earlier.  

Where I sit in northwestern Vermont, April is going to turn out to be a somewhat cooler than normal month.

In fact, it will be cooler than normal by the widest margin of any month since March, 2015.

That's not saying much. April in Vermont will only be moderately cooler than average, even with a chilly snap due this weekend and early next week.

Vermont is an exception to the ongoing hot times around the globe.

NOAA just released its monthly global climate assessment, this time for March, and announced it was the hottest March on record, and the hottest of any month on record, relative to normal.

April heat is ongoing in other parts of the world, too. There have been unprecedented heat waves  so far this month in Southeast Asia, China, India, Greenland, the Maldives, Burkino Faso in Africa and i Seattle, Washington.

NOAA'S ANALYSIS:

First let's get into the NOAA March report.

March, as noted, had the largest departure above normal for the Earth as a whole of any month since at least 1880.

The old record for the largest departure for above normal on Earth was set way, way back on, um, February, 2016, just a month earlier.

March, 2016 was the 11th consecutive hottest month on record, according to NOAA, an unprecedented long consecutive global heat wave.

Yes, El Nino is part of the reason this is happening, but global warming is, too. Even though we certainly won't continue to have consecutive record warm months, it'll still stay hotter than average, even if we get into a La  Nina, which tends to cool the planet. (Many climatologists say we are poised to enter a "cooler" La Nina. )

The year 2015 was by far the Earth's warmest on record, but the first three months of 2016 were way, WAY above even 2015's incredibly hot values.

It'll take an awfully strong La Nina later this year to drag this year's global average temperature below 2015 record values.

APRIL STAYS HOT

According to Christopher Burt at Weather Underground, Cambodia had it's all time national hottest temperature on record this month (108.7 degrees) as did Laos at (108.1)

At least 50 Thailand cities and towns also had their all time hottest temperatures on record So did many cities in China's Hainan province.

The African nation of Burkino Faso reached 117.5 in April, that country's hottest reading on record.

Greenland, as noted in a previous post, had an unheard of for April thaw earlier this month.

Up in normally temperate Seattle, Washington, it was 89 degrees on Monday, the hottest April reading there on record.

Many of the heat waves across the globe I've just outlined are still ongoing.

It's looking like April, overall for the globe will also be among the hottest on record, if not the hottest.