For sure you’ve seen the headlines declaring June 2023 the Hottest month ever.  If you’re like me, your response is: That’s not the way June went down where I live.  Fortunately there is a website that allows anyone to check their personal experience with the weather station data nearby.  weatherspark.com provides data summaries for you to judge what’s going on in weather history where you live.  In my case a modern weather station is a few miles away  June 2023 Weather History at Montréal–Mirabel International Airport.  The story about June 2023 is evident below in charts and graphs from this site.  There’s a map that allows you to find your locale.

First, consider above the norms for June from the period 1980 to 2016.

Then, there’s June 2023 compared to the normal observations.

The graph shows May was warm, but not so much during June, pretty normal in fact.  But since climate is more than temperature, consider cloudiness.

Woah!  Most of the month was cloudy, which in summer means blocking the hot sun from hitting the surface.   And with all those clouds, let’s look at precipitation:

So, 19 days when it rained, including heavy rain, and sometimes thunderstorms, especially toward month end.  Given what we know about the hydrology cycles, that means a lot of heat removed upward from the surface.

So the implications for June temperatures in my locale.

There you have it before your eyes.  One Hot day, then cold, cool, warm
and ending comfortable.  Hottest June Ever!
Maybe in some imaginary world,  but not in the real one.

Summary:

Claims of hottest this or that month or year are based on averages of averages of temperatures, which in principle is an intrinsic quality and distinctive to a locale.  The claim involves selecting some places and time periods where warming appears, while ignoring other places where it has been cooling.

Remember:  They want you to panic.  Before doing so, check out what the data says in your neck of the woods.