Unless meteorologists are horribly off in their predictions for the next few weeks of 2012, New York City is set to finish its warmest year ever, with an average temperature of 57.2 degrees.
That average temperature makes 2012 warmer than the three other years currently tied for the hottest ever: 1990, 1991 and 1998, according to the Wall Street Journal, which analyzed data from the National Weather Service station in Central Park.
“If you were to end the year right now, we would finish a 10th of a degree above 1991, which was the current warmest year on record,” said National Weather Service meteorologist David Stark.
The only thing that could stop 2012 from reaching the number 1 spot would be for December to average a temperature significantly lower than the one NYC experienced in January of 1918, the coldest month in city history.
According to Weather.com, New York City should see temperatures in the 30s and 40s for the remainder of 2012.
Given the extremely low chances of an epic deep freeze, it is safe to assume that New York City will set a new record high this year, which puts the city in the same category with Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, which are all on course for record-setting years.
In fact, the entire lower-48 is on pace to surpass the national high-temperature record of 54.3 degrees, set in 1998, by more than a degree, according to the National Climatic Data Center.