Santos Tejeda cools off at Georgetown Waterfront Park in Washington in July. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

By Ian Livingston

With 2024 behind us, data from the entire year can confirm: The footprint of the year’s record and near-record annual temperatures across the United States was extensive and significant.

Locations that experienced their top five warmest years on record were widespread. Those with the most sustained warmth were around the toasty Gulf of Mexico and scattered inland across locations such as the Northeast, Mid-South and Southwest.

As such, the list of places that reached their warmest on record for the year is also quite long.

Although the numbers are still being crunched from various agencies, preliminary data indicates that it was either the warmest year on

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