Print article WASHINGTON - The official calculation of what constitutes “normal” U.S. climate has been updated - and to virtually nobody’s surprise, it’s a warmer picture than ever before. On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an updated set of climate averages for the contiguous United States based on the 30-year period from 1991 to 2020, including more than 9,000 daily reporting stations. It refers to these averages* as “climate normals,” and updates them once every decade. Compared to previous 30-year periods, the climate has turned unambiguously warmer. “We’re really seeing the fingerprints of climate change in the new normals,” Michael Palecki, manager of NOAA’s effort to update the climate normals, said at an April news conference. “We’re not trying to hide that, we’re in fact reflecting that.”