"I looked at every combination of 12 months from September through August, January to December, March through to February. There never has been a warmer 12 months in [Winnipeg's] recorded history," Phillips said.

The average temperature in Winnipeg between Aug. 1, 2011 and Jul. 31, 2012 was 6 °C (43 °F). This shatters the record of 5.6 °C (42 °F) that stood since 1877, and is well above Winnipeg's historical median temperature of 2.6 °C (37 °F). The average temperature included highest and lowest each 24 hours, through all seasons.

Winnipeg is not the only place experiencing unusually warm weather.

The Mojave Desert town of Needles, California, experienced rainfall that fell to the ground at a scorching 46.1 °C (115 °F) on August 13, 2012 – the hottest rainfall ever recorded on the planet.

In Phoenix, Arizona, residents dealt with nine straight days (August 6th to 14th, 2012) with the mercury above 43 °C (110 °F).

"It's becoming very hard to not conclude that global warming is decidedly here, especially with the extreme events and the record runs like the one we've just experienced," said Dr. Danny Blair, the associate dean of science and director of the Climate Studies Institute at the University of Winnipeg.

Blair said weather patterns are largely determined by jet streams -- and these streams are affected when the patterns of the Earth's surface change.