It was the hottest April on record in the NASA dataset. More significantly, following fast on the heels of the hottest March and hottest Jan-Feb-March on record, it's also the hottest Jan-Feb-March-April on record.
The record temperatures we're seeing now are especially impressive because we've been in the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. It now appears to be over. It's just hard to stop the march of manmade global warming, well, other than by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that is.
Most significantly, NASA's March prediction has come true: It is nearly certain that a new record 12-month global temperature will be set in 2010.
Software engineer (and former machinist mate in the US Navy) Timothy Chase put together a spreadsheet using the data from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In NASA's dataset, the 12-month running average temperature record was actually just barely set in March and then easily set in April.
