AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Climate Central has instituted a global analysis to determine the impact on people from the warming climate. Using data from numerous reporting stations they determined that, in the United States, more than 71,000,000 experienced, on average, recorded at least two weeks of days (non -consecutive) with temperatures that were affected by the changing climate. It should be pointed out that this might have been responsible for an increase in heat-related health risks but it could be argued that most of these health risks would likely be occurring in the summer, not the winter. The graph below is called the Climate Shift index. This is part of how Climate Central determines how the changing climate alters the regularity of day-to-day temperatures locally, across the country, and across the world. The analysis, using data from December 2024 to February 2025, showed that the majority of this warming was in the western United States. There, residents experienced at least three weeks' worth of average temperatures warmer than normal. This includes Alaska. The Last Frontier had the largest departure from its historical normal with a Meteorological Winter temperature nearly seven degrees above its three-month average temperature. Temperature data showed that 17 U.S. states had at least two weeks worth of days with above-normal temperatures. The state where the average person experienced the highest number of winter-season temperatures being warmer than the average was Hawaii with 76 days. Climate Central's analysis studied 247 United States cities. The numbers reflect that 94 of those cities (38%) did experience average temperatures that were two weeks' worth of warmer than normal days. Normal temperatures are the numbers over 30 years from 1991 to 2020. Austin's seasonal average temperature was 54.2°. That's just .6° above the average of 53.6°. But there's a catch. December was well above normal by 6°. January was well below normal by 5.3° while February was a little below normal by 1.2°. It's possible that December might show people potentially being affected by the warmer numbers, the fact that the first two months of 2025 were below normal likely means the effects of these temperatures on people were minimal. The data for the season comes from record-keeping by the National Weather Service. We have written in this space before how winter is the fastest-warming season for most of the country. That's almost the case here in Austin. Winter is the second fastest-warming season behind summer. ...read more read less