Last year was the hottest on record for the continental United States, shattering the previous mark set in 1998 by a wide margin, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Tuesday. The average temperature was 55.3 degrees, 1 degree above the previous record and 3.2 degrees more than the 20th-century average. Temperatures were above normal in every month between June 2011 and September 2012, a 16-month stretch that hasn’t occurred since the government began keeping such records in 1895.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/2012-hottest-year-on-record-in-continental-us-noaa-says/2013/01/08/5c9dc1ae-55d9-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html