Warm temperatures in the United States shattered national records this year, especially in March, the government said Monday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that temperatures in the lower 48 states were 8.6 degrees above normal for March and 6 degrees higher than average for the first three months of the year. Meteorologists say that several weather patterns, including La Nina, were the direct cause of the warm start to 2012. NOAA meteorologist Martin Hoerling said that the unusual winter heat was mostly a North American phenomenon as much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere was cold. The first quarter of the year broke the January to March record by 1.4 degrees, according to U.S. temperature records that started in 1895. It is unusual for a record to be broken by more than one- or two-tenths of a degree. The 2011-2012 winter was the fourth warmest winter on record. Since last April, it has been the hottest 12-month stretch on record. March was the most unusual month. March averages 5.8 degrees Celsius across the United States. This year's average was 10.6 degrees Celsius, which is closer to the average for April. Only in January 2006 was the country as a whole that much warmer than normal for the entire month. In March, at least 7,775 weather stations across the country broke daily high temperature records, and another 7,517 broke records for night-time heat.
