November 2015: Earth's Warmest November and 2nd Warmest Month of Any Kind on Record

November 2015 was Earth’s warmest November on record by a huge margin, according to data released by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Thursday. November 2015 also had the second largest positive departure of temperature from average of any month among all 1631 months in the historical record that began in January 1880; only last month (October 2015) was more extreme. As shown in the table below, October and November 2015's 0.97°C and 0.99°C departures from the 20th Century average beat the next eight runners-up by an unusually large margin, underscoring how unusual and extreme the current surge in global temperatures is. NASA also rated November 2015 as the warmest November in the historical record. November 2015's warmth makes the year-to-date period (January - November) the warmest such period on record, according to both NOAA and NASA. November 2015 was the seventh consecutive month a monthly high temperature record has been set in NOAA's database, and the ninth month of the eleven months so far in 2015. The potent El Niño event in the Eastern Pacific that crossed the threshold into the "strong" category in early July continued to intensify into mid-November, and is now slowly waning. Strong El Niño events release a large amount of heat to the atmosphere, typically boosting global temperatures by at least 0.1°C. This extra bump in temperature, when combined with the long-term warming of the planet due to human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, makes it virtually certain that 2015 will be Earth's second consecutive warmest year on record. The lingering warmth from El Niño is likely to make 2016 a good bet to exceed even 2015's warmth.

NOAA's top ten warmest global monthly departures from the 20th Century average:
1) 0.99°C, Oct 2015
2) 0.97°C, Nov 2015
3) 0.91°C, Sep 2015
4) 0.89°C, Mar 2015
5) 0.88°C, Feb 2015
5) 0.88°C, Jan 2007
7) 0.87°C, Aug 2015
7) 0.87°C, Jun 2015
9) 0.86°C, Feb 1998
10) 0.85°C, May 2015


Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for November 2015, the warmest November for the globe since record keeping began in 1880. Record warmth was observed over the Caribbean, most of equatorial and northeastern South America and parts of southeastern Asia. Parts of the Barents Sea in the Arctic and much of the Indian Ocean were also record warm. Image credit: National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) .


Figure 2. Departure of the global surface temperature from average for the year-to-date period January - November, for all years from 1880 to 2015. This year is on pace to easily beat last year as the warmest year on record. Image credit: NOAA.

Global satellite-measured temperatures in November 2015 for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were the warmest November readings in the 37-year record, according to the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). This is the second consecutive month the UAH database has registered a record monthly high. The lowest 8 km of the atmosphere heats up dramatically in response to moderate to strong El Niño events, with a time lag of about six months.



Two billion-dollar weather disasters in November 2015
Two billion-dollar weather-related disasters hit the Earth last month, according to the November 2015 Catastrophe Report from insurance broker Aon Benfield: severe monsoon flooding in South India and Sri Lanka that killed 328 people and did $3 billion in damage, and intense drought in South Africa that has cost at least $2 billion. With 24 billion-dollar weather disasters so far in 2015, Earth is on pace for a below-average number of these disasters, compared to the average of 28 recorded during the previous 10-year period, 2005 - 2014.


Disaster 1. Five weeks of frequent torrential monsoon rainfall fed by record-warm ocean waters during November and early December inundated southern India and Sri Lanka killed 328 people and did at least $3 billion in damage. Hardest hit was Chennai, an urban area of more than 9 million people that ranks as the largest in South India and among the world’s 40 largest metro areas. Parts of Chennai spent days inundated by as much as eight feet of polluted water, with widespread power outages exacerbating the crisis. Chennai recorded 1218.6 mm (47.98”) of rain in November, the highest observed for any November in more than 100 years of record-keeping. Then, on December 1-2, a total of 345 mm (13.58”) fell in 24 hours, which smashed the city’s all-time 24-hour record rainfall of 261.6 mm on December 10, 1901. Chennai’s airport was closed for four days in early December, with some 4000 people and dozens of aircraft stranded. At one point, all runways were under water. This photo of the Chennai airport is from Thursday, December 2, 2015. Image credit: Atul Yadav/ Press Trust of India via AP.


Disaster 2. One of the worst droughts in decades intensified in South Africa during November 2015. Some of the hardest-hit areas included KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces. Water shortages affected 2.7 million households, agricultural production plummeted, and economic damages were estimated at $2 billion. In this image, we see the carcass of a dead cow in the Black Umfolozi River, in Nongoma district north west from Durban, South Africa on November 9, 2015. Image credit: MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP/Getty Images.

Arctic sea ice comes in at 6th lowest November extent on record
Arctic sea ice extent during November 2015 was the 6th lowest in the 36-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

Notable global heat and cold marks set for November 2015
Hottest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: 42.3°C (108.1°F) at Matam, Senegal, November 6.
Coldest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: -54.2°C (-65.6°F) at Geo Summit, Greenland, November 4.
Hottest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: 46.8°C (116.2°F) at Dampier, Australia, November 15.
Coldest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: -61.1°C (-78.0°F) at Concordia, Antarctica, November 1.

Major stations that set (not tied) new all-time heat or cold records (for any month) in November 2015
Saint Laurent do Moroni (French Guiana, France) max. 37.9°C, November 3:  New Territorial record high for French Guiana
Pirapora (Brazil) max. 41.2°C, November 6
Montes Claros (Brazil) max. 40.3°C, November 6
Barra (Brazil) max. 40.0°C, November 6
Januaria (Brazil) max. 41.4°C, November 7
Middle Point (Australia) max. 41.6°C, November 8
Pretoria Unisa (South Africa) max. 40.3°C,  November 11
Johannesburg (South Africa) max. 36.5°C,  November 11
Frankfort (South Africa) max. 36.9°C, November 11
Oudestad (South Africa) max. 40.8°C, November 11
Estcourt (South Africa) max. 39.6°C, November 11
Towoomba (South Africa) max. 42.4°C, November 11
Gabarone Airport (Botswana) max. 41.5°C, November 11
Ladysmith (South Africa) max. 40.7°C, November 11
Bulawayo Airport (Zimbabwe) max. 38.6°C,  November 12
Gokwe (Zimbabwe) max. 38.2°C, November 13
Januaria (Brazil) max. 41.5°C,  November 13
Maumere (Indonesia) max. 36.6°C,  November 13;  increased to 36.9°C on November 30
Ampenan (Indonesia) max. 36.6°C,  November 22
Cipo (Brazil) max. 42.0°C, November 26



New all-time national and territorial heat records set or tied in 2015
As of December 15, 2015, sixteen nations or territories tied or set all-time records for their hottest temperature in recorded history in 2015, and two (Israel and Cyprus) set all-time cold temperature records. For comparison, only two nations or territories set all-time heat records in 2014, and nine did in 2013. The most all-time national heat records held by any year is nineteen in 2010. Most nations do not maintain official databases of extreme temperature records, so the national temperature records reported here are in many cases not official. I use as my source for international weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, one of the world's top climatologists, who maintains a comprehensive list of extreme temperature records for every nation in the world on his website. If you reproduce this list of extremes, please cite Maximiliano Herrera as the primary source of the weather records. Wunderground's weather historian Christopher C. Burt maintains a database of these national heat and cold records for 235 nations and territories on wunderground.com's extremes page.

Kudos also to Mr. Herrera for supplying the data for the "Notable global heat and cold marks set for November 2015" and "Major stations that set (not tied) new all-time heat or cold records in November 2015" sections of the post.

Bob Henson and I will appear on WU’s live show, “This Week in Weather”, at 5 p.m.ET/2 p.m. PT today (Thursday) as we highlight some of the major weather stories of the year.  To watch, go to http://www.wunderground.com/live-forecasts"

Jeff Masters