According to this excellent Mindscape (Sean Carroll) podcast with Gavin Schmidt (Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies,) there is a circle of climate modeling folks who make a yearly bet on the next year's global average temperature. They have been patting themselves on the back for over a decade with how good their estimates have been, Ninos and Ninas, all factored in. Their estimates were generally rising, but as a group they were always within range.

This was the first year where everyone was wrong, as it actually got way hotter.

Podcast: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/05/20/276-...

Data: https://berkeleyearth.org/march-2024-temperature-update/

    - Globally, March 2024 was nominally the warmest March since records began in 1850.
    - The previous record for warmest March was broken by only a very small margin (0.01 °C), within uncertainties this means March 2024 essentially tied with March 2016.
    - The ocean-average also set new records for the warmest March.
    - The land-average was the 3rd warmest observed, behind 2016 and 2023.
    - Particularly warm conditions occurred in parts of North America, Asia, South America, Africa, and large areas of the Atlantic.
    - No regions exhibited unusually cold monthly averages in March.
    - 43 countries set new national monthly-average records for February.
    - El Niño has weakened to a moderate category, and is likely to end by mid-2024.
    - 2024 is very likely to be either the warmest or second warmest year on record.