JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Meteorological summer is over, and it was the hottest season most Americans have ever lived through.
From June through August in the U.S., the average temperature slightly exceeded the record heat of the 1936 Dust Bowl Summer at 2.6 degrees above average.
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This summer tied as the second hottest on record across the Northern Hemisphere, according to NOAA scientists.
August alone was Earth’s sixth warmest on record north of the equator.
The core of this summer’s U.S. heat was located west of the Continental Divide and across the northern tier of states into New England and Florida.
But the heat wasn’t as bad here in Jacksonville. The past three months have all been cooler than average thanks to the extra rain.
The west needs our rain. Lake Mead, the water source for seven states, is more than 15 feet below levels from the past two years.
Hurricanes are getting stronger, and the cost associated with them is soaring.
For the second year in a row, Louisiana was slammed by a Category 4 hurricane. Ida’s destruction cost between $43-64 billion, which puts it in the top-10 most expensive weather disasters in world history.
Tropical Storm Fred’s landfall in the Florida Panhandle is one of only eight below-hurricane-strength tropical systems to inflict more than $1 billion in damage to the U.S.