Globally, 2024 was the .
The planet's average temperature was NASA's 20th-century baseline. According to World Weather Attribution, climate change added an additional to the year, and exacerbated 26 of 29 weather events, which killed at least 3,700 people. That included Hurricane Milton in the United States, Typhoon Yagi in Southeast Asia, and deadly flooding in Spain.
Global warming is measured by land surface temperature, whereas air or meteorological temperature determines the daily weather forecast and how it will "feel" outside.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, surface temperatures are also increasing in the contiguous U.S. Since the late 1990s, these increases have . The surface temperature has increased every year in the 21st century thus far.
While 2024 was the warmest year on record for the planet, 2025 could surpass it. In June 2025, at 282 locations across the U.S. That included being set in 50 Eastern U.S. cities. And it's not only this country that's burning up鈥擡urope has seen an that began in June 2025 and continued into July. The New York Times reports . While it's too soon to say how many records will be broken when all is said and done, the National Weather Service issued a new warning about a across the U.S. on July 21, 2025.
The climate situation is constantly in flux, but we can look to past data to see which states tend to be most affected by scorching temps. To find out how and where those heat waves break down, 麻豆原创 compiled data from NOAA's and determined the warmest states based on their 2023 average temperatures. Each temperature is compared to the 1901-2000 average. Winter refers to December of the preceding year through February of the current year (e.g., in 1919, winter is December 1918 to February 1919), while summer refers to June through August of each year. All temperatures are listed in Fahrenheit, and data was not available for Hawai'i.
Although the warmer climate of southern coastal states is often appealing, these regions also deal with meteorological phenomena鈥攆rom droughts and floods to tropical storms and hurricanes鈥攖hat can be devastating. Despite this, in recent years, Florida, Texas, and the Carolinas were the four states with the most significant, which suggests a correlation between year-round warm temperatures; mild, short winters; and living preferences.
Read on to find out the temperatures in the warmest U.S. states, and see what the coldest states in America are here.
