Rick Thoman: 2016 is globally the 2nd warmest October on record

This image comes from Richard James at Prescient Weather. It shows the  standardized sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies for October 2016.

According to Brian Brettschneider’s rankings, this is globally the second warmest October (behind only last year).

Given that last year we had a full-blown El Nino underway and this year, we have a weak La Nina (Aug-Sep-Oct ONI Index at -0.7), the fact that Oct 2016 is #2 is quite remarkable.