NOAA: Hottest April and hottest Jan-April on record - Masters: Record Atlantic sea surface temps in hurricane development region, "The three past seasons with record warm April SST anomalies all had abnormally high numbers of intense hurricanes"

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center has published its monthly "State of the Climate Report."  It pretty much matches the NASA data.

An emeritus physics professor writes me cautioning against the use of the word 'anomaly' since, "In many people's mind, the word 'anomaly' means something unusual that is a temporary phenomenon."  He suggests "change," which is probably better.

Certainly for those who are communicating to the general public, like NOAA and NASA, 'anomaly' is a confusing word as u...