Last month was the hottest May on record for Savannah, the office of the state climatologist reports.

The temperature averaged 79.2 degrees, 5.9 degrees hotter than normal, according to data collected by Service Climatologist Lauren Holt in the State of Georgia Climate Office. The average daily maximum was 89.9, according to the National Weather Service in Charleston and the Hostess City posted daily record high temperatures each day of the last week of May, including a four-day streak of triple digit maximum temperatures over Memorial Day weekend. Overnight lows didn't always provide relief, with daily record high minimums of 76° and 75° set on the May 30 and 31.

State Climatologist Bill Murphey has not yet released the statewide monthly report for May, but records from his office indicate other Georgia cities were also sweltering. Atlanta had its hottest May on record averaging 76.4 degrees, up 6.3 degrees over the long-term average. Augusta, Macon and Athens each had its second warmest May on record, with the mercury reaching 100 or greater five days in a row in Augusta. Columbus had its third hottest May.

While Georgia and the Southeast sweltered in May, that wasn't the case across the country. The average May temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 59.5 degrees F (0.70 degrees below the 20th-century average), which ranked in the bottom third of the 125-year record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Don't expect any unusually cool weather soon. NOAA's three-month outlook gives Savannah a 41 percent chance of above average temperatures, a 33 percent chance of average temperatures and a 26 percent chance of below normal temperatures in June, July and August compared to the 1981-2010 climatological record. July is usually the warmest month in Savannah, with an average high of 92.4, though August, with an average high of 90.6 degrees, sometimes beats the odds and edges it out.

Global warming is pushing up summer temperatures here. The environmental research group Climate Central looked at the number of summer days above the 1981-2010 NOAA/NCEI climate normal in Savannah and found an upward trend ending resulting in 23 summer days that are hotter than normal. That’s more than three additional weeks with hotter-than-normal temperatures. How much hotter? Climate Central crunched that data, too, and indicated Savannah's summers are 1.8 degrees hotter now than in 1970.





Heat - SavannahInfogram