San Rafael, with an average summer temperature of 64.5 degrees, shivered through the coldest summer since records began being kept 60 years ago. Likewise, new records were set in Monterey (57.6 degrees) and at the reporting station on Mount Diablo in the East Bay (67.4 degrees)

Oakland, meanwhile, also was blustery with an average temperature of 62.3 degrees – the second coldest in history.

San Francisco, historically known for cold summers triggered by heavy coastal fog, had an average temperature of 59 degrees while San Jose was nearly nine degrees warmer on average at 67.6 degrees.

NOAA said that since late Spring the weather pattern across the United States has been stubbornly persistent.

A ridge of high pressure has kept temperatures soaring in the East while a low pressure system has been parked off the West Coast keeping temperature well below normal.

One of the few breaks in the cool gloom came on August 23rd when the weather trough shifted eastward, allowing a strong ridge of high pressure to build.

The combination of the warm air mass and light offshore winds sent temperatures soaring. Three locations sent records on Aug. 24th – downtown San Francisco, Monterey and Salinas.

But then the weather pattern changed again and the temperatures plunged once more.

Elsewhere, the year was on track to be one of the warmest on record, the weather service said.

The planet's average temperature for January-August was 58.5 degrees Fahrenheit (14.7 Celsius), tying the record heat set for that period in 1998, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.

While 1998 was the hottest year through the first eight months, 2005 is the hottest full year on record.

The National Climatic Data Center also reported:

--It was the third-hottest August on record with an average temperature for the month of 61.2 degrees F (16.2 C). The hottest August was 1998, followed by 2009.

--The meteorological summer -- June-August -- averaged 61.3 degrees F (16.2 C), making it the second-hottest summer on record worldwide behind 1998.

Meanwhile, a separate report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center said Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year and is the third-lowest extent recorded since satellites began measuring minimum sea ice extent in 1979.

Arctic sea ice covered an average of 2.3 million square miles (6.0 million square kilometers) during August. This is 22 percent below the 1979-2000 average extent and the 14th consecutive August with below-average Arctic sea ice extent, NOAA reported.

Melting sea ice is part of a pattern of changes atmospheric scientists attribute to global warming, which has been documented in rising temperatures over the last several decades.

Other changes include melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica, which can lead to rising sea levels, a decline in glaciers and changes in weather patterns around the world.

The new climate report noted that August was hotter than normal in eastern Europe, eastern Canada and parts of eastern Asia but cooler than average in Australia, central Russia and southern South America.

It was the hottest August since 1961 in China, but the coolest August since 1993 in the United Kingdom.