2024 records hottest-ever January and February: Data

In February 2024, the average global temperature was 13.54°C, the warmest-ever for any February

This year’s February was the hottest February ever. So was this year’s January. This is in continuation of a streak: the last seven months of 2023 also marked record highs for those months. Records have been set and broken in successive years, which means that the world is heating up.

Not only are temperatures rising, but they are also rising at a faster rate than ever before. The gap between the record temperatures set in 2023 and 2024 and the old records from previous years which were broken are considerably wide, showing that the rise in temperature is rapid.

Chart 1 | The chart shows the monthly average global surface temperatures by year. The numbers 1 to 12 on the horizontal axis represent the months of the year, from 1 for January to 12 for December. For clarity, the year 2020 and the subsequent years are highlighted in red.

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In February 2024, the average temperature was 13.54°C, the warmest ever for any February. The previous record was set in 2016 when the average temperature touched 13.42°C. That record broke the previous record of 13.33°C, set in 2020.

In January 2024, the average temperature was 13.14°C, again the warmest ever for any January. The previous record was set in 2020 when it touched 13.02°C. That broke the previous record of 12.99°C, which was set in 2016.

Map 2 | The map shows the country-wise average monthly surface temperature as on February 15, 2024.