July finishes as California’s hottest month on record

Death Valley sets all-time world mark

California just sweltered through its hottest month ever recorded.

Out of the 1,483 months since records began in 1895, when Grover Cleveland was President, July 2018 was the hottest of all, with an average statewide temperature of 79.7 degrees, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.

This means no lifelong Californian alive has lived through a hotter month.

And notorious hot spot Death Valley led the way, with an average July temperature of 108.1 degrees. This is an alltime high temperature record for any weather station in the world, NOAA said.

The heat was a major player in the deadly fires that have had the state under siege the past few weeks. Monster fires such as the Mendocino Complex Fire, the state’s biggest on record, have scorched some 1,171 square miles this year, according to Cal Fire.

UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said that much of the ferocity of the fires can be blamed on the extreme warmth fueled by climate change.

Nationally, July wasn’t record hot, as it was only the 11th-hottest on record. This was due to near- to below-average temperatures that stretched from the Great Plains into parts of the Midwest and Southeast.

Rain – and lots of it – was the big story in the East in July, leading to widespread flooding. Pennsylvania had its wettest July on record, while Maryland slogged through its secondwettest.

So far, Arizona and New Mexico are seeing their warmest years on record.