Hottest August ever

Or at least hottest August ever measured.  Original data here.  I've plotted the 12 month average as a better picture of the underlying reality.  Data for just one month will be more volatile than for 12 months.

Note the 1998 spike in temps.  That was an el nino year as this and next year are likely to be.  And the climate change denialists used that year to begin their "evidence" that global temperatures had stabilised.  The infamous "hiatus".  Yet any unbiased observer can see that that was an anomalous year.  Probably this year will be too, but that is little comfort.  The trend is inexorably up.