As we close in on the last quarter of the year (and the end of baseball’s regular season), 2012 is on track to be the country's hottest year ever recorded. But as Yogi Berra says, “It ain't over 'til it's over.”
So how cold would it need to be for the rest of the year to miss the record?
|Click on the image to see the high resolution version. Image Credit: Climate Central.|
Pretty darn cold. As you can see in the graphic above, based on temperature data from NOAA’s NCDC, if we have normal fall and winter temperatures every month for the rest of the year, we will clearly break the record (yellow line). If it stays warmer than average, we will break the record by even more (orange line). In order to miss breaking the record as the hottest year ever recorded in the United States, the months of September through December would each need to be among the coolest third of those months on record (green line).