Washington ? A vast swath of the United States was warmer than usual this year, leading to severe drought conditions and wildfires in the West and Southeast. Texas, the Lone Star state, stood alone, the only one to record below average temperatures.

Preliminary data released Thursday by federal scientists predict the annual average temperature for 2007 across the contiguous United States at near 54.3 degrees Fahrenheit – making the year the eighth warmest since records were first kept in 1895. Worldwide, the average temperature for the year, expected to be near 58 degrees Fahrenheit, is on pace to be the fifth warmest ever, said the report by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

“Within the last 30 years, the rate of warming is about three times greater than the rate of warming since 1900,” said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch at the center. “The annual temperatures continue to be either near-record or at record levels year in and year out.”

In the United States, the months of March and August were the second warmest in more than 100 years. Six states – Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida – had the warmest August month on record.

In 113 years of record keeping, all but four states – Texas, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont – experienced either above average or significantly above average temperatures from January through November. Wyoming had its second warmest year; Idaho and Utah had the fifth-warmest years on record.

North Carolina had the driest year so far. From midsummer into December, more than three-quarters of the Southeast was in drought, the report said.

The problem in Texas, Lawrimore said, was too much rain that led to flooding and the wettest summer on record. The cloudy and rainy weather for much of the year contributed to the cooler temperatures for the state, he said.

Globally, seven of the eighth warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1997, said the report.

“When you see these numbers, it’s screaming out at you, ‘This is global warming,'” said climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in Canada. “It’s the beginning and it’s unequivocal.”