November 2025 was Earth’s third-warmest November in analyses of global weather data going back to 1850, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI, reported December 11. NASA and the European Copernicus Climate Change Service also rated November 2025 as the third-warmest November on record, behind only 2023 and 2024.
November marked the sixth month in a row that has ranked third-warmest for that calendar month across the past 176 years. While “third-warmest” may not sound eye-poppingly impressive, this comes without a planet-warming El Niño event, whose presence helped fuel the record-warm years of 2023 and 2024.
Global land and ocean areas each had their 4th-warmest November on record in 2025, according to NOAA. It was the 2nd-warmest November on record in Europe and North America, the 8th-warmest in Africa, and the 9th-warmest in Asia and South America.
The period September-November (Northern Hemisphere fall, Southern Hemisphere spring) was the 3rd-hottest such period on record, behind 2023 and 2024, according to NOAA, NASA, and Copernicus.
Keeping an eye on the 1.5°C threshold
According to NOAA, the year-to-date period (January-November) has been the 2nd-warmest on record for the globe, running just 0.01°C (0.02°F) above the January-November value for 2023 and 0.1°C (0.2°F) behind the value for 2024. The European Copernicus Climate Change Service currently has 2025 as being tied with 2023 as the second-warmest year-to-date period on record, and expects 2025 to end up as the second- or third-warmest year on record, behind only 2024 and perhaps 2023. They expect the average global temperature for 2023–2025 to exceed the much-watched value of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This would be the first three-year average to do so in the instrumental period.
The Paris Agreement does not define the length of time above 1.5°C that would qualify as a breach of that target. Standard climatological practice uses 30-year periods for long-term averages, whereas the most recent IPCC assessment used 20-year periods to distinguish long-term trends from natural variability. A study earlier this year in Nature Climate Change led by Emanuel Bevacque (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research–UFZ) argued that even a single year reaching 1.5°C very likely means that the midpoint of a 20-year period destined to end up above 1.5°C has been reached, assuming there isn’t volcanic cooling and/or massive emission reductions over the following decade. As noted in its State of the Global Climate 2024 report, the World Meteorological Organization has convened a panel of experts to examine how a breach of the 1.5°C could best be defined and tracked.
Regardless of the metric used, it is increasingly apparent that a long-term breach of 1.5°C is virtually certain. In the Emissions Gap 2025 Report released by the UN Environment Programme last month, UNEP executive director Inger Andersen said: “The multi-decadal average of global temperature will now exceed 1.5°C, very likely within the next decade. The task, and it is a big one, is to strive to make this overshoot temporary and minimal.”
4th-warmest November, 3rd-warmest fall, and 5th-warmest year-to-date period for the contiguous U.S.
During November, the average temperature in the contiguous U.S. was the fourth-warmest in national data going back to 1895, said NOAA. November was the warmest on record for five states: Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and Texas.
Fall 2025 (September-November) was the third-warmest on record for the contiguous U.S., with 23 states recording a top-10 warmest fall on record; eight of those states recorded their warmest fall on record.
The year-to-date period of January-November is the fifth-warmest for the contiguous U.S. across 131 years of recordkeeping. Sixteen states have had a top-10 warmest year-to-date period, with Utah in the lead, with its second-warmest such period. The year-to-date has had near-average precipitation for the contiguous U.S. across 131 years of recordkeeping.
U.S. tornadoes in November numbered 14, with none being EF2 or stronger. The preliminary total of 1,543 U.S. tornadoes observed from January 1 to December 9 ranks as the fourth-highest year-to-date total since 2010. There were no tornado deaths in November. The U.S. tornado death toll for the year so far is 68.
La Niña conditions are likely to end in early 2026
The La Niña Advisory put into effect in September continues, as the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, remains in a La Niña state, NOAA reported in its December monthly discussion of ENSO. ENSO is a recurring ocean-and-atmosphere pattern that warms and cools the eastern tropical Pacific through El Niño and La Niña events that last from one to three years. To qualify as such a full-fledged event, El Niño or La Niña conditions must persist in both the ocean and atmosphere for at least five consecutive, overlapping three-month periods. The span from September through November marked the first such three-month La Niña period.
According to NOAA’s December 11 forecast, the odds of La Niña conditions drop to 54% for the period December 2025–February 2026 and to 31% for January-March 2026, with neutral conditions most likely to prevail by that point. The Nov. 19 forecast from the Columbia University International Research Institute for Climate and Society gave a 50% chance of La Niña conditions lasting into the December-February period, but a 42% chance of El Niño conditions arriving for the June-August 2026 period.
Arctic sea ice: 2nd-lowest November extent on record
Arctic sea ice in November 2025 had the second-lowest November extent in the 47-year satellite record, behind only 2016, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, or NSIDC. The Arctic had its second-warmest November on record in 2025, just behind November 2023. Since December 1, daily arctic sea ice extent has been approximately tied with 2016 as the lowest on record. The total volume of Arctic sea ice has also been record-low in recent days (see Bluesky post above).
Antarctic sea ice extent in November was the fourth-lowest in the 47-year satellite record. Only 2016, 2024, and 2023 had lower November extents.
Notable global heat and cold marks for November 2025
Weather records expert Maximiliano Herrera documents world temperature extremes in remarkable detail and has provided us with the following info for November. Follow him on Bluesky: @extremetemps.bsky.social
- Hottest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: 43.0°C (109.4°F) at Vinoramas, November 3
- Coldest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: -51.4°C (-60.5°F) at Tunu-N, Greenland, November 28
- Hottest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: 46.8°C (116.2°F) at Bedoutie, Australia, November 23
- Coldest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: -55.0°C (-67.0°F) at Vostok, Antarctica, November 9
Major weather stations in November: one all-time heat record, no all-time cold records
Among global stations with a record of at least 40 years, one set, not just tied, an all-time heat record in November; no stations set an all-time cold record:
Manokwari (Indonesia) max. 35.7°C, Nov. 9
Nine all-time national/territorial heat records beaten or tied as of the end of November
- Maldives: 35.8°C (96.4°F) at Hanimadhoo, Feb. 27 (previous record: 35.1°C (95.2°F) at Hanimadhoo, Mar. 24, 2024
- Togo: 44.0°C (111.2°F) at Mango, Mar. 16 and Apr. 5 (tie)
- Turkey: 50.5°C (122.9°F) at Silopi, Jul. 25
- Kosovo: 42.5°C (108.5°F) at Kline, Jul. 25
- Brunei: 39.2°C (102.6°F) at Sukang, Jul. 29; tied again on Aug. 1 at the same location
- Japan: 41.2°C (106.2°F) at Kaibara, Jul. 30; broken again on Aug. 5 with 41.8°C (107.2°F) at Isesaki
- United Arab Emirates: 51.8°C (125.2°F) at Swiehan, Aug. 1 (tie)
- Martinique (territory of France): 37.0°C (98.6°F) at Le Lamentin, Aug. 22
- St. Eustatius (territory of the Netherlands): 34.4°C (93.9°F) at Roosevelt Airport, Sep. 13
Seventy additional monthly national/territorial heat records beaten or tied as of the end of November
In addition to the nine all-time national/territorial records set so far in 2025 (plus three nations that beat or tied their record in two separate months), 70 nations or territories have set or tied monthly all-time heat records as of the end of November 2025, for a total of 82 monthly heat records:
- January (6): Cocos Islands. French Southern Territories, Faroe Islands, Maldives, Northern Marianas, Martinique
- February (3): Northern Marianas, Argentina, Togo
- March (8): French Southern Territories, Algeria, Saba, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Mauritius, Cocos Islands
- April (11): French Southern Territories, British Indian Ocean Territory, Latvia, Estonia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ireland
- May (5): French Southern Territories, Iceland, Kyrgyzstan, China, Qatar
- June (7): Cocos Islands, Hong Kong, Slovenia, Spain, Portugal, Jersey, Gabon
- July (7): Maldives, Ukraine, Honduras, French Southern Territories, U.S. Virgin Islands, Malaysia, Japan
- August (10): Honduras, Cocos Islands, Lebanon, Albania, French Southern Territories, Israel, Iceland, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Martinique
- September (4): Canada, Namibia, Chile, Central African Republic
- October (5): Taiwan, French Southern Territories, New Caledonia, Cocos Islands, Martinique
- November (4): Singapore, Israel, Cape Verde, U.S. Virgin Islands
One nation set an all-time monthly cold record in 2025: Qatar in January.
Hemispherical and continental temperature records in 2025
- Highest temperature ever recorded in South America in February: 46.5°C (115.7°F) at Rivadavia, Argentina, February 4
- Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in South America in February: 30.8°C (87.4°F) at Catamarca, Argentina, February 10.
- Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in Africa in November: 31.9C (89.4°F) at Vioolsdrif, South Africa, November 14.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Source link