The US just had its warmest winter on record

NOAA/NCDC

This winter was one for the record books.

According to NOAA's latest regular "State of the Climate" report, this winter was the warmest on record in the United States.

The temperature average across the United States was 36.8°F, which NOAA reports was 4.6 degrees above the 20th century average. This means this winter beat out the previous record holder (the winter of 1999/2000) by 0.3 degrees.

46 states had above average winters, with Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, all having record warm winters. Alaska had it's second warmest winter ever.

Compared to last winter, this was balmy, but not by that much. Despite the record snowfall on the East Coast in 2014/215, that winter was the sixth warmest on record. Now, it's the seventh.

And it's unlikely any last minute freeze will cut this winter's record down to size. Winter this year ends on March 20, a date that is fast approaching. Clearly, winter as we know it is never coming again.

This article originally appeared on Popular Science.

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