The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. in 2007 is officially the tenth warmest on record, according to data from scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The agency also determined the global surface temperature last year was the fifth warmest on record.
U.S. Temperature Highlights
The average U.S. temperature for 2007 was 54.2°F, or 1.4°F warmer than the 20th century mean of 52.8°F. NCDC originally estimated in mid-December that 2007 would end as the eighth warmest on record, but below-average temperatures in areas of the country last month lowered the annual ranking. For Alaska, 2007 was the 15th warmest year since statewide records began in 1918.
Six of the 10 warmest years on record for the contiguous U.S. have occurred since 1998, part of a three decade period in which mean temperatures for the contiguous U.S. have risen at a rate near 0.6°F per decade.
For the contiguous U.S., the December 2007 mean temperature was 33.6°F, near the 20th century average of 33.4°F. The Southeast was much warmer than average, while 11 states — from the Upper Midwest to the West Coast — were cooler than average.
Warmer-than-average temperatures for December 2007 in large parts of the more heavily populated eastern U.S. resulted in temperature related energy demand about 1.9 percent below average for the nation as a whole, based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index. For the year, the REDTI estimates that national residential energy consumption was about 2.5 percent below average.