This news was shared along with other global and national climate data and forecasts by NOAA officials during the monthly climate report on Aug. 15.
“Approximately 13.8 percent of the world’s surface had a record-high July temperature,” said Karin Gleason, monitoring section chief for NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. This includes land and ocean surfaces and was a 5.4 percent increase from July 2023.
Removing ocean surface from the observation, she specified that the July temperatures were recorded on 19.2 percent of the global land surface.
Year-to-date average temperatures were also found to be at record levels—2.3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than average—making it the warmest first seven months of any year since global temperature record-keeping began 175 years ago.
The year 2024 now has a 77 percent chance of being the hottest in that time frame, with a 100 percent chance of being one of the top five hottest years.
Global sea temperatures, however, were only the second-warmest and ended a 15-month streak of record-breaking heat, data showed.
Meanwhile, July 2024 was only the 11th warmest July for the United States, whose national temperature records go back 130 years, and the average temperature over the first seven months of the year came in second overall.
That being said, NOAA officials reported that, specifically for California and New Hampshire, it was the hottest July on record. However, several Midwest and Plains states, including Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa, had colder-than-average temperatures.
As of Aug. 13, more than 22 percent of the contiguous United States remained in a state of drought. Those conditions are expected to expand and intensify in West Virginia and the Ohio River Valley, the central and southern plains, the Pacific Northwest, and the northern Rocky Mountains.
Increased drought conditions are expected in the western part of the country as wildfires continue to burn in several states, including California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. NOAA said that drought leads to poorer vegetation health, which, in turn, creates more favorable conditions for wildfires.
Between June 18 and Aug. 13, NOAA stated that the dry conditions were considerably contracted or were eliminated for much of the southeastern United States due in part to the rainfall from Tropical Storm Debby. Midwest states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, continue to see near-record precipitation month after month.
NOAA officials also provided an updated list of the year’s billion-dollar disasters. Hurricane Beryl and the forest fires in New Mexico were added, making 19 disasters found to have caused more than $1 billion in damages in 2024 thus far. Those 19 disasters also include 15 severe storm events and two winter storms.
The disaster update did not include Hurricane-turned-Tropical Storm Debby.
NOAA continued to predict an active Atlantic hurricane season and projected that the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast would receive above-average precipitation through the end of hurricane season, Nov. 30. Florida is expected to receive the most.
Much of the United States is expected to experience above-average temperatures in September, October, and November. There is also a 66 percent chance of a La Nina developing in that timeframe.
