CHARLOTTE — According to the North Carolina State Climate Office, 2024 was the second warmest year on record for the state (behind 2019) and tied 1990 for the warmest year on record for Charlotte. That’s based on the average year-round temperature which was 2.6 degrees warmer than the 30-year average.
Most of those warmer-than-average temperatures came in spring and fall rather than summer, with November and February deviating the most from average. This matches statewide trends toward warmer temperatures as 11 of the warmest 15 years on record occurred in the past 20 years.
“You can definitely detect a warming trend since the mid-to-late 1960s is another way that I always look at this graph is just say, take any of these years in the past decade, superimpose them on each of those years back in the 20th century, and you can see how out of place that historically,” Corey Davis, the assistant state climatologist. “It’s just commonplace now.”
As for precipitation trends, 2024 had slightly above average rainfall, but the climate office reports that is largely due to a few major rain events rather than steady rain throughout the year. In fact, for nearly all of 2024, at least some portion of North Carolina was experiencing drought conditions.
Spring rain meant some farmer’s couldn’t get their crops in on time and then in early summer, drought hit the state’s corn crop hard. As hurricane season took off, three major tropical systems caused flooding across the state, the costliest of which was Helene. After that, came a dry fall, which led to heightened fire risks in the mountains.
Davis said it’s a part of an emerging pattern of weather whiplash, a pattern of switching back and forth between major dry periods and big rain events.
“From the planning side, that’s, I think, one of the most concerning parts,” he said. “Folks can’t look three months down the line and say, you know, we’re expecting might have a hot, dry summer, because you may have a hot, dry part of summer by a really wet flooding part of summer.”
As for 2025, Davis said we’ve started the year in a weak La Niña pattern, which typically means warmer and drier conditions in North Carolina, but this January has been off to a chilly and wet start. Kathie Dello, the state climatologist, expects January to be one of the coolest months the state has seen in about two years, but as the year goes on, they anticipate a trend of warmer weather to win out.
“The planet is warm again, and we would expect that 2025 will fall also in the top 10 warmest years on record,” she said.
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