( CNN ) -- It may not have felt like it in the United States , but the world saw its warmest November on record last month , according to new data released Tuesday by U.S. observers . The global average temperature for November was just under 56.6 degrees Fahrenheit ( 13.7 C ) , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported . That 's about 1.4 degrees F over the 20th century 's average and the second-highest November mark on land since records started being kept in 1880 , NOAA said . North America was one of the few places that saw below-average temperatures for the month . That may be no surprise to Americans who were traveling over the snowy , slushy Thanksgiving holiday , but it put the continent in rare company . Only southwestern Greenland , north-central Australia and the seas off Tierra Del Fuego saw a cooler-than-average November , while eastern Europe and Asia saw much warmer temperatures for the month . Russia saw a particularly warm November , with parts of Siberia , the Ural Mountains and its Arctic islands recording temperatures up to 14 F ( 8 C ) above an average that dates back to 1891 , NOAA said . The data showed no record lows for the month anywhere on the globe . The figures , compiled by NOAA 's National Climatic Data Center and NASA , include both land and ocean readings . They were released less than three months after the United Nations concluded that global warming was continuing , and that human activity -- particularly the consumption of fossil fuels , which release heat-trapping carbon dioxide -- is largely responsible . It 's a controversial notion politically , but one long accepted by most scientists . November continued an unbroken string of 345 months of temperatures above the 20th-century average , with 37 consecutive Novembers topping that mark , according to NOAA . Longer-term , the global average for September through November was the second-warmest on record , trailing only 2005 , and the year-to-date figure of 58.3 F ( 14.6 C ) is the fourth-warmest on record .
November 's global average temperature was the warmest on record . North America was one of the few spots that saw lower-than-average temps . The last 37 Novembers have topped the 20th century average .