ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It's not only us: October wasn't just the hottest in Tampa weather history, it was the second-warmest for planet Earth.
NOAA on Monday announced the global land and ocean surface temperature departure on average last month was the second-highest for the month of October in its 140-year temperature dataset.
The 20th-century temperature average is 57.1 degrees -- October 2019 was about 1.76 degrees above that and just 0.11 degrees shy of tying the hottest October ever recorded back in 2015, the agency says.
These warm temperatures aren't just a one-off: NOAA says the 10 warmest Octobers have occurred since 2003, with half of them happening each year since 2015. And in all, October 2019 marked the 418th month in a row with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.
Back home in Tampa Bay, many locations that report temperatures back to the National Weather Service either ranked No. 1 or 2 for the warmest October on record.
The Fort Myers area led the pack with an average temperature of 82.9 degrees -- 5 degrees above average. Tampa shattered the old record set in 1919 at 4.9 degrees above average, and St. Petersburg had the second-warmest October at 4.3 degrees above average.
RELATED: New month, same hot weather?
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