Extreme Weather Map

If you think 2012 was a tough year for weather in the United States, you're right — it was.
Thousands of monthly weather records were broken — and now you can see where, on an interactive 50-state map released Tuesday by an environmental group.

Last year, 3,527 such records were broken for heat, rain and snow, up from 3,251 in 2011, according to U.S. government data. Some of the records had stood for 30 years or more. That reflects serious climate change, says the Natural Resources Defense Council, which created the map.

Last week, the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., confirmed that 2012 was the warmest year on record for the USA, where weather records date to 1895. The average temperature was 55.3 degrees, 3.2 degrees above the 20th-century average, and 1 degree above