Coast-to-coast heat: May broke U.S. record

May shattered heat records across the U.S. as sizzling warmth was reported nationwide, federal scientists announced Wednesday.

In addition, not only was it the warmest May on record across the country, but almost 8,600 local heat records also were broken or tied.

“The warmth was coast-to-coast,” said climate scientist Jake Crouch from NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information. The heat was particularly noteworthy in the central U.S., especially in the upper Midwest and Ohio Valley.

On May 28, the temperature in Minneapolis soared to a record 100 degrees, the city’s earliest 100-degree reading on record, buckling roads, straining air conditioners and triggering air-quality alerts.

The previous warmest May was in 1934 during the height of the Dust Bowl.

For folks in the Midwest, the crazy heat of May followed what had been an unusually cold April. In fact, for two states in the Upper Midwest — Iowa and Wisconsin — it was the coldest April since records began.

Overall, the average May temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 65.4 degrees, which is 5.2 degrees above average, NOAA said.

Partly to blame for May’s heat is the overall warming trend from man-made climate change, Crouch said. Also, two tropical systems helped pump warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico across the eastern U.S.

Penn State University climate scientist David Titley, referring to global warming, said that “nature is dealing cards from a very different deck now compared to the 20th century.”