Climate Central: August is synonymous with sweltering summer heat, and that was certainly the name of the game for much of the country this year, temperature data released Wednesday shows. Those sultry temperatures helped two western states see their warmest summers on record, and could help push those and others to their warmest year on record.
August also helped bolster the average temperature for the contiguous states, which saw their 12th warmest summer and ninth warmest year-to-date in the last 121 years,...