If you lived in the U.S. during The Hottest Year Ever but failed to die of heatstroke, this might be why: "the Average Annual Temperature for the Contiguous United States for 2012 is 55.25°F"

Announcing the first ever CONUS yearly average temperature from the Climate Reference Network | Watts Up With That?

Therefore, from this data, the Average Annual Temperature for the Contiguous United States for 2012 is 55.25°F

Note also the value from the CRN from July 2012, 75.6°F far lower than what NCDC reported in the SOTC of 77.6°F and later in the database of 76.93°F as discussed here.

Makes you wonder why NCDC never mentions their new state of the art, well sited climate monitoring network in those press releases, doesn’t it? The CRN has been fully operational since late 2008, and we never here a peep about it in SOTC. Maybe they don’t wish to report adverse results.