April one of the warmest on record
By Nick Wiltgen, Weather.com
The waning influence of La Niña helped April 2012 to become the fifth warmest April worldwide in 133 years of recordkeeping, and the warmest April on record in the Northern Hemisphere, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.
The global average temperature of 57.87 degrees F last month was about 1.2 degrees above the 20th-century average. It was the greatest departure from that average since November 2010. The Northern Hemisphere was even farther above average, running a record 1.7 degrees above the 20th-century baseline.
Earlier this month, scientists determined that La Niña had ended during April as water temperatures continued to warm across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. La Niña is typically associated with relatively cooler global temperatures.