If you are seriously proposing that standard deviation makes an average 8.6 degrees above normal insignificant then you are going to have to present some pretty compelling evidence. NOAA do generally know how to do some basic math.
I do understand what standard deviation is, and I do understand that it is possible that a 8.6 degrees difference would be significant. What I meant was that NOAA wouldn't be highlighting this unless it was.
Anyway, it's public data, and we can settle this pretty easily, right?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.p... has the raw data in CSV form going back to 1895.
The standard deviation is 2.89 (assuming my calculations are correct)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3820795 for the calculations if you insist.