It's not simply a typically hot summer in Utah. The current warmer-than-normal temperatures are a continuation of a record-setting trend, here and across the country, for the first part of 2006.

"We have had a fairly warm last couple of months," says Todd Hall, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Utah.

It's the same around the country — which experienced its warmest first half of the year on record, according to the National Climate Data Center.

And temperatures won't be getting any cooler this weekend. Utah communities north to south recorded blazing temperatures Friday — Salt Lake City hit 102 and St. George 108. Hall expects highs throughout the state to again reach near 100 or above today, with clouds and only slightly cooler temperatures possibly by Sunday.

"We're entering a period when it's the warmest it gets in Utah," Hall said.

June, too, was a hot one in Utah.

"We were just about three to five degrees above normal," Hall said. April and May were similarly warmer than normal. And, he added, "we're going to continue to be warm."

The average temperature for the 48 contiguous states from January through June was 3.4 degrees above average for the 20th century, according to data recorded since 1895 by the National Climate Data Center.

Warmer weather and less rain have created drought conditions in parts of Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona.

As of last month, about half of the lower-48 states were in a moderate-to-extreme drought.

"I wouldn't classify us as being in a drought," Hall said about conditions in Utah.

A map compiled by the Climate Prediction Center in Maryland shows only parts of southeastern Utah as having abnormally dry or moderate drought conditions.

Around the country, no state so far this year has been cooler than average. Worldwide, the first half of 2006 was the sixth warmest year-to-date, according to records that begin in 1880.

So, it's warmer in Utah, across the United States and around the world — data that, to some, supports a familiar claim these days.

"I think it's well proven that global warming is occurring," Hall said.

Throughout geologic time, which is measured in millions of years, the Earth has experienced cycles of extreme heat and cooling. But there is clear evidence, Hall added, that human intervention is adding to a current warming trend around the world.

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Contributing: Associated Press; Dustin Gardiner, Deseret Morning News

E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com