December 2015 was both the warmest and wettest December on record in the contiguous United States, according to a report released Thursday by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. The month capped a year in which every state in the Lower 48 was warmer than average.
The December mean temperature over the contiguous U.S. of 38.6 degrees Fahrenheit topped the previous record warm December of 37.7 degrees set in 1939, according to NOAA/NCEI's State of the Climate report. December 2015 was 6 degrees warmer than the 20th-century average. Temperature records for the Lower 48 as a whole date back to 1895.
Twenty-nine states, including every state east of the Mississippi River, set record warm Decembers. Only the West featured near-average December temperatures. No state had a cooler-than-average December.
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