2016 second-hottest year in United States

Washington — With steamy nights, sticky days and torrential downpours, last year went down as one of the warmest and wildest weather years on record in the United States.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that 2016 was the second hottest year in the U.S. as nighttime temperatures set a record.

The average temperature last year in the Lower 48 states was 54.9 degrees, nearly 3 degrees above the 20th century average of 52. It’s the 20th consecutive year that the United States was warmer than normal.

Only 2012’s 55.3 degrees was warmer in the 122 years of U.S. record keeping.

The U.S. also notched its second highest number of weather disasters that cost at least $1 billion in damage: 15 separate ones together caused $46 billion in damage and 138 deaths. In 2011, there were 16 weather disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damage.

Archbishop dies: Archbishop Patricio Fernandez Flores, former archbishop of the San Antonio, Texas, Roman Catholic archdiocese and the first Mexican-American to rise to bishop in the U.S. Catholic church, has died at the age of 87. In a lengthy statement, the San Antonio archdiocese said Flores died Monday of pneumonia and congestive heart failure at a San Antonio assisted living center for retired priests.