It seems as though every month a new temperature record is set – “hottest month ever” or “year breaks temperature records.”

Last week, the Grand Junction office of the National Weather Service reported that La Plata County’s average temperature for the meteorological winter – from December through February – was 5 degrees above average.

The weather service uses data collected at the Durango-La Plata County Airport.

But Southwest Colorado was just part of a bigger global trend.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, with data from NASA, announced this week that this winter and the first two months of 2015 were the hottest on record globally, with the chilly Northeast U.S. sticking out like a cold thumb in a toastier world.

At nearly 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average, last month was the second-warmest February on record globally, slightly behind 1998.

But the combined January and February temperature beat the old record for the first two months set in 2002.

December through February broke the meteorological winter record set in 2007.

NOAA records go back 135 years to 1880.

Parts of Russia, Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa, South America and especially the U.S. West were extra warm.

As a whole, the U.S. had a bit cooler-than-normal February, but slightly warmer-than-normal winter.

abutler@durangoherald.com