Two things strike me about that quote. First, the range starts in 1880, which is just about the end of the Little Ice Age.[1] So yeah, pretty much every year s

Two things strike me about that quote. First, the range starts in 1880, which is just about the end of the Little Ice Age.[1] So yeah, pretty much every year since then is likely to be warmer than the last one. For a fairer comparison, you'd have to go back to 1100 or so to the Medieval Warm Period. We're still warmer today than back then, but not by as much. The second thing that struck me was the same thing that struck you: a single number is meaningless. If the fluctuations were completely random, you'd still always have a 'highest' one, but it wouldn't mean anything. And since we're trending upwards anyway (still coming out of that cool period, which only ended 100 or so years ago) you'd expect new highs to occur fairly often and fairly recently. I don't think this particular record says much; at most it fits with the fairly obvious warming trend we're in. If it was the coldest November since 1880, that'd be news because it would be a really odd occurrence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age