This year is on track to be the warmest year on record for California – and the entire planet – according to a new report. And recent rainstorms didn’t make a dent in the drought.
Temperatures in California for the first 10 months of the year averaged 4.2 degrees above the state’s 20th-century average, according to the report released Thursday by the National Climatic Data Center.
A new record for the warmest year in California history is a virtual certainty, the report said.
Average global temperatures for January through October, meanwhile, also surpassed records set in 1998 and 2010.
Eric Luebehusen, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meterologist, said in the latest U.S. Drought Map, released Thursday, that “the 2014-15 Water Year has afforded little – if any – drought relief to California.”
Rainfall in Central and Northern California over the last week fell short of normal rain totals, he said. The totals also “did nothing to offset the impacts of the ongoing three-year drought,” he said.
In Southern California, Santa Ana winds have only intensified dry conditions.
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