Mapping the hottest U.S. year on record
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The Lower 48 states had their hottest year on record in 2024, in keeping with global trends.
Why it matters: The year featured numerous extreme weather events in which record warmth played a role — from the obvious, like deadly heat waves, to torrential rains.
Zoom in: Virtually the entire contiguous U.S. was unusually warm in 2024, NOAA found.
- Specifically, the country was 3.5°F above the 20th century average.
- A total of 1,117 counties across the Lower 48 states and Alaska — one-third of all counties — were record warm for the year.
By the numbers: According to NOAA, more than 300 million people experienced a top-10 warmest year, with more than 140 million people affected by the warmest year on record.
- A staggering 17 states from the Upper Midwest to the Northeast, south into the Mid-Atlantic and southern U.S. had their record warmest year in 2024. All but two of the rest of the states had a top-five warmest year.
The heat milestones set last year were significant.
- In Caribou, Maine, for example, the NWS issued its first-ever excessive heat warning for a heat index near 110°F on June 19.
- Las Vegas saw its all-time hottest temperature of 120°F on July 7.
- In Deadhorse, Alaska, the high of 89°F on Aug. 6 set an all-time high temperature record and milestone for the highest temperature so far north in that state.
- Heat milestones were also obliterated in Phoenix, which had 70 days of 110°F or higher days and its hottest summer and year on record.
On the precipitation front, drought waxed and waned during the year.
- The U.S. Drought Monitor showed that 88% of the Lower 48 states were in some form of drought conditions as of Nov. 5 — the highest percentage in the history of this product.
- Drier-than-average conditions were most persistent in the Southwest, with parts of the Mid-Atlantic seeing stubbornly dry conditions as well.
Zoom out: Globally, 2024 was the planet's hottest year on record and was the first year to have a global average surface temperature exceed the Paris target of 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels.
Go deeper: Hundreds of U.S. locations had their hottest year on record
