If you’re thinking, “Dang, it just feels hotter this summer than it used to,” it’s probably not only ‘cause you’re getting older. “Broiling temperatures in the 90s and beyond gripped large swaths of the country Monday,” USA Today reported earlier this week, as thermometers registered 103 in Denver, 94 in New York, and 102 in Oklahoma City.

According to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, last month was the second hottest June in the U.S. since record-keeping began back in 1895. In fact, the first half of 2006 is the warmest January-to-June on record for the continental U.S. The average temperature during the six-month period was 3.4 degrees above normal.

Across a swath of the central U.S., from Nebraska to Texas, five states had their warmest-ever average temperatures during the first six months of the year. Across the West, the Great Plains, and most of the Great Lakes and Northeast, temperatures were “much above normal,” according to the NCDC. Not a single state in the continental U.S. was even “near average” for the period. (Though Alaska was half a degree cooler than the average for the last 30 years.) And beyond our borders, the global surface temperature of the Earth was also the second warmest ever recorded.

All of which has made many people cry “Global warming!” and with potentially good cause. A report by the National Academy of Sciences released last month concluded that the Earth is hotter now than it has been in at least 400 years. The heat has sent air-conditioning seekers off to their local cinemas, where many of them – conveniently – are recharging in the cool, dark theater while watching Al Gore tell them all about climate change. Of course, that same demand for a/c keeps the coal burning at the power plants, which will continue to pump out CO2, which will continue to warm the planet, which will only increase the desire for more a/c.

But hot weather heralds more than just longer lines at the movie theater. It means warming oceans and the potential for severe hurricanes (another of NOAA’s predictions for this year). It means invasive species, one topic of a conference this week that addresses a gamut of nefarious threats to the nation’s forests. It can mean drought and wildfire, both of which are currently slamming several western states. In Colorado, all but 5 of the state’s 64 counties were designated disaster areas this week, thanks to “heat, high winds, insect pests, a late freeze, and ongoing drought,” according to the Rocky Mountain News. It’s enough to send you escaping to the movies.