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Yes, with one important qualification. According to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), September 2026 was the warmest September on record for the contiguous United States (CONUS), meaning the lower 48 states. The headline’s “U.S.” is broader than the ranking NCEI actually published, so the accurate version of the claim is about CONUS.
The core numbers
NCEI reports a mean temperature of 69.4°F across CONUS for September 2026. That is 4.6°F above the 20th-century average for the month. The ranking is drawn from a record that begins in 1895. The previous warmest September for CONUS was 68.95°F, set in 1998, as NCEI’s comparison in the same September 2026 report shows.
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| Measure | September 2026 | Previous CONUS September record (1998) |
|---|---|---|
| Mean CONUS temperature | 69.4°F | 68.95°F |
| Departure from 20th-century average | +4.6°F | Not stated in the NCEI comparison |
| Period of record used for ranking | Begins 1895 | Within the same record |
| Margin over the other | About 0.45°F above 1998 | — |
The 0.45°F margin is simple subtraction of the two rounded values published in the report. It is not a separate statistic NOAA published, so treat it as approximate.
What the “U.S.” in the headline covers
CONUS excludes Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories. NCEI’s ranking applies to the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia’s surrounding grid conventions as the agency defines them for this series. Readers should not assume the record was measured for every U.S. jurisdiction. Keeping the scope in the sentence is the difference between an accurate headline and an overstated one.
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Where the heat was concentrated
NCEI describes above- to much-above-average temperatures across much of the interior U.S., extending to the East Coast. The strongest anomalies were over large parts of the southern and central Plains and the Mississippi Valley, where September temperatures were record warm across wide areas.
The month was not uniform. Parts of northern California and the Pacific Northwest were below average. A national monthly average does not describe every region, and it does not describe every day.
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The eight state records
NCEI reports that eight states had their warmest September on record. Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma are among them. According to the summary, five of the state records date to the 1920s or 1930s. Those state rankings use each state’s own history, so they are not directly comparable with the CONUS ranking.
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A warm state can have a high absolute temperature without setting a departure record, and a state with a smaller absolute warmth can still show a large departure from its own normal. When comparing places, check which measure a claim uses. The CONUS record is an absolute monthly mean; the 4.6°F figure is a departure from the 20th-century average.
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Nighttime temperatures were a separate story
NCEI also reports on minimum temperatures, which are a different measure from the headline mean. The CONUS average minimum temperature exceeded the previous September record, set in 2019, by more than 1.2°F. By county-average minimum temperature, more than 30% of CONUS area, home to an estimated 80 million people, had its warmest September nighttime temperatures on record.
These nighttime results do not change the monthly mean ranking. They describe how warm the nights were, which matters for heat stress and for energy demand, but NCEI’s summary is the source for the numbers, not for any health or energy conclusion.
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What this record does not establish
- It is a single-month national average. It does not show that every location or every day set a record.
- The NCEI summary reports observed temperatures. It does not, by itself, attribute this month’s heat to any particular cause.
- Coverage by Scientific American, which the October 9, 2026 headline page links to, was not available as full text for this article. Causal explanations or forecasts should not be attributed to that coverage here.
For the official figures, consult NOAA NCEI’s September 2026 national climate summary, titled “Monitoring the U.S. Temperature and Precipitation in September 2026.”
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