Extreme? Yup.
I had the strong impression that July and Aug were sort of warmer than usual, while June was extreme. My impressions can be faulty, but this time NCDC verifies it with a BANG.
Here's July compared to the last century or so of Julys:
Yup, warm but not record-breaking.
And here's August:
Closer to normal.
And here's
JUNE!@!$&@^%%$#%!
Even more dramatic because it comes after
two decades of resolutely nonextreme Junes. There's your forest fires in one graph. Add in Mary Verner,
an emergency manager who is KNOWN to be incompetent in emergencies, and you've got a guaranteed total disaster.