Today NOAA released its climate summary for the US for the month of October. It shows that for the continental US as a whole, October 2014 was the fourth warmest on record. Most of this heat was driven by record-setting warmth in the western US due to the continuing drought in California and surrounding states. This is also linked to the persistent ridge and trough across North American that has controlled our weather for much of this year. This can be seen in the year-to-date map of temperature rankings by state, which show warm temperatures in the western US and cold temperatures in the eastern US.
You can read the report at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2014/10
