Extreme Temperature Diary- Monday September 22nd, 2025/Main Topic: The Climate Lottery: Fall 2025 Contest – Guy On Climate
Dear Diary. Welcome to the first day of fall. It’s time once again to play my contest if you wish. The Climate Lottery is a forecast contest free to play by giving your picks in an e-mail or in this post’s comment section. No prizes will be given out for the contest, which is for educational purposes only. The main purpose for the contest is to get climate change conscious people interested in National Center for Environmental Information climate products. I will make a personal pick, following along with any players.
I’m getting all of my information for every Climate Lottery contest here, which I hope you will refer to often:
National Maps | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (noaa.gov)
The National Center for Environmental Information ranking numbers for average temperatures of the lower 48 states for Fall 2025 will be posted on or shortly after October 10th, 2025, which will be the official “Climate Lottery” numbers of the contest. Any subsequent changes by NCEI after their initial posted rankings will not be valid for the contest…but those ranking numbers will change with time.
The winning Climate Lottery numbers for Summer 2025 (JUN, JUL, AUG) were 125/113/104 with a Power Ball number of 120 for the season, meaning that the Summer 2025 was the 12th warmest summer in recorded history for the lower 48 states in the United States.
Hello again to all weather and climate geeks out there. Summer 2025 turned out to be the 12th warmest and the 120th coolest summer on record for most of the United States. If you wish to play “The Climate Lottery,” pick one number between 1 and 131 (with 1 representing the coldest possible ranking and 131 being the highest possible ranking) for September, October and November. Also, pick a “Power Ball” or overall ranking number for the spring season as a whole between 1 and 131. The Power Ball ranking will serve as a tiebreaker for any close picks between contestants. Your picks are NCEI rankings for average temperatures across the lower 48 states. Because 2025 will be the 131st year that the National Center for Environmental Information has been ranking years since 1895, all months for 2025 will have a warmest ranking of 131.
Please give your picks at guywalton94@Gmail.com or in the comments section at the end of this post before October 5th, 2025. If you wait until just before October 5th to make your picks, you can make an educated guess as to what the ranking for June will be and also have a heads-up guess for July.
The Power Ball (or overall National Center for Environment Information) number for Summer 2025 for the lower 48 states was 120, which was the 12th warmest ranking possible for the lower 48 states. I’ve defined individual lottery numbers as a ranking for each month for the lower 48 states, Power Ball numbers as those for each season, and Mega Ball numbers as those for each year. The Mega Ball number for 2024 was 130, meaning that 2024 was the warmest year on record for the lower 48 states.
Chances for an entire season of below average temperatures are becoming much less likely across the lower 48 states due to carbon pollution. The whole point of these posts is to demonstrate how skewed temperatures have become towards warmth due to climate change and to get people to look at NCEI data. Of course, as far as the globe goes, the larger an area that is compared to average, the more likely that area is to be above long-term averages. What has happened this decade is yet more proof of the Climate Lottery game being loaded for warmth in the United States. Balls coming out of the Climate Lottery hopper are likely to have high numbers.
Charts used below can be found here:
ncei.noaa.gov
Here’s a breakdown of the National Climatic Center’s ranking numbers by state for Summer 2025, which was ranked at 12th warmest or 120th coldest (or a Powerball ranking of 120):
Overall, Summer 2025 was well above average in the West and East with near average conditions across the central U.S.
The following is a breakdown of each month for Summer 2025. Each chart shows “Climate Lottery” numbers for each state (or rankings) from a scale of 1 to 131.
In June the overall ranking for the lower 48 states was 125 (Out of from 1 to 131):
Summer started out very warm relative to average across most of the nation. June 2025 was the 8th hottest June on record. A few central states had near average conditions June was the warmest month of Summer 2025 relative to average.
In July 2025 the overall ranking for the lower 48 states was 113 (out of 131):
Warm conditions relative to average were widespread across the East because of a historic heatwave. The Virginias had their hottest July on record. No one state was below average.
In August the overall ranking for the lower 48 states was 104 (out of from 1 to 131):
The West continued to bake. During this day and age of global warming the atmosphere can still cause below average conditions for a large area for about a month, and that is what happened from the central Plains into the Southeast.
The following are the rankings, so far, for individual months or “Climate Lottery number picks” from 2015-2025:
The average ranking for 2025 is 65.5 since the coldest ranking would be 1 and the hottest 131. I have color coded all well below average temperature rankings for this post at or below 55 blue and all those above temperature rankings at or above 75 red, with rankings + or – 10 from the mean value of 65.5 black for near average temperature rankings. Record warmest months are highlighted in purple. With time, the rankings for each individual month, season and year will change as more data becomes available from NCEI. Also, for reference, the annual or “Mega Ball” numbers are shown on the chart. For example, the Mega Ball number for 2022 was 111, meaning that 2022 was the eighteenth warmest year on record for the lower 48 states.
Seasonal or Power Ball rankings for winter are those for DEC/JAN/FEB, spring are MAR/APR/MAY, summer JUN/JUL/AUG, and fall SEP/OCT/NOV. Mega Ball rankings for each year are included on the chart below. Also, keep in mind that NCEI rankings for seasons are not merely an average of rankings of individual month of a season or year, as was the case for Summer 2025- 125/113/104 P.B. 120:
Notice that since the start of 2015 only three out of the last forty-two seasons were near average or “black.” No season was below average or colored blue. Thirty-eight out of the last forty-three seasons since 2015 have been “red” or “purple,” being above average. Summer 2025 definitely adds to our warm stats and was also colored red. Indeed, the Climate Lottery hopper is very much loaded for above average temperatures for the lower 48 states looking at recent history. Yes, the “Casino of Climate Averages” is cheating causing the “House of Warming” to win just about every new season due to carbon pollution.
I hope that everyone will have a great, safe fall.
Guy Walton…”The Climate Guy”
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Autumn equinox day starts with a huge contrast in Europe with a cold front chasing an abnormally hot air mass which is pushed East
Today we had almost 44C in Algeria,34C in the Balkans,31C in Russia.
Widespread tropical nights with minimums up to 24C in the Balkans. — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T17:01:38.355Z
Patches of intense heat persists into the astronomical autumn in Middle East:
Today the Minimum temperature in the coastal Iranian town of Kharg was 33.0C.
Some stations have never recorded a night minimum below 30C yet, since the beginning of summer.
Every year is more brutal. — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T10:32:55.286Z
After few months of clouds and rain, record heat returns to the Gulf of Guinea.
Today the Ghanaian town of Wa recorded a minimum temperature of 25.5C, its hottest September night in history. — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T13:54:50.733Z
Record heat continues in JAPAN
Today the small island of Chichijima rose to 33.2C breaking its record of Highest September temperature again.
In few days a new heat wave will sweep most of Japan again with an abnormally hot weekend. ( up to 35C). — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T12:35:47.044Z
SOUTH AMERICA HEAT WAVE
Extremely hot night in PARAGUAY
Minimum temperatures up to
30.4C at Radio Station 96.1
This is just 0.5C from the September hottest night ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere
(Cuiaba,Brazil)
Fierce heat in Brazil too:40C Rio d. J.
More tomorrow — Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social) 2025-09-21T21:45:43.361Z
The Trump Administrations efforts to deliberately create a dangerous lack of data, and what that means for you.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/c... — Silicon Valley North - Citizens Climate Lobby (@cclsvn.bsky.social) 2025-09-18T14:38:22.589Z
Exploding Trouble in Siberia; So. America Rewrites Climate History; Real Estate Vultures; Sun Day Rallies; Defending the Earth Can Be Deadly; The Global High Seas Treaty & More on @climateguyw.bsky.social Extreme Temperature Diary today:
guyonclimate.com/2025/09/20/e... — Silicon Valley North - Citizens Climate Lobby (@cclsvn.bsky.social) 2025-09-21T01:08:51.459Z
The CR battle will no doubt bring these concerns back to the foreground.
civileats.com/2025/06/17/h... — Silicon Valley North - Citizens Climate Lobby (@cclsvn.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T14:17:09.683Z
@ucs.org is headed to #ClimateWeekNYC! Join us with events all week, starting tomorrow. Here's a sampling of where we'll be. 🧵Join us! www.ucs.org/ucs-nyc-clim... — Gretchen Goldman, PhD (@gretchentg.bsky.social) 2025-09-19T17:14:49.712Z
My last talk on Friday at the American Museum of Natural History will be live-streamed. Register to watch here! www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-ed... — Katharine Hayhoe (@katharinehayhoe.com) 2025-09-22T02:29:48.150Z
There's plenty bubbling in the Atlantic right now—a major hurricane, plus two disturbances worth keeping an eye on—while Super Typhoon Ragasi heads toward the far southern China coast. My latest with @drjeffmasters.bsky.social:
yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/09/hurr... — Bob Henson (@bhensonweather.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T18:38:13.615Z
Good morning. #Gabriellle now forecast to become a major hurricane as it heads away. AND a new “medium” chance of development heading towards the Bahamas. Tropics are coming alive. Stay tuned. — Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T12:06:01.159Z
A beast - Super Typhoon #Ragasa - winds 180 mph (estimated) near landfall on the islands of the Northern Philippines — Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T01:00:27.347Z
#Food: “Crop insurance is getting more expensive because of climate change, [yet] spending more money on climate resilience practices could lower [those] costs.”
Not just home insurance, #ClimateChange raises prices on everything.
civileats.com/2025/09/10/a... — Silicon Valley North - Citizens Climate Lobby (@cclsvn.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T14:19:18.790Z
UCS Western states senior policy manager Daniel Barad, pictured above at the signing, said, “Today, Governor Newsom affirmed California’s indelible commitment to improving energy affordability while bolstering the state’s clean energy future." Learn more: act.ucsusa.org/4mt2IeC — Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) 2025-09-19T18:48:50.319Z
“It must be governed on principles of prudence and fairness. This agreement makes that possible.” Treaty to Protect Ocean Life Clear Final Hurdle.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/c... — Silicon Valley North - Citizens Climate Lobby (@cclsvn.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T14:14:42.936Z
The Trump administration told federal agencies to use the “good cause” exemption to skip that process altogether. Another way the US Public is being shut out of the processes of their own government. — Silicon Valley North - Citizens Climate Lobby (@cclsvn.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T14:21:13.768Z
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