The EPA has been keeping temperature records since 1895.

Cape May - The EPA has been keeping temperature records since 1895. According to their chart of the US Annual Heatwave Index, the only large spike is in the mid 1930's during the dust bowl years. Now we are around the average of the other 120+ years and about the same as it was in the late 1800s. On their Number of All Time Temperature Records chart of all USHCN Stations there was a large spike in 1936. Recent years are, again, around average. Some organizations show these charts truncated to start from 1960 since that was a low point. If you look further back it paints a different picture. Fear sells.