2023 Was Hottest Year On Record In Burlington, Vermont. One Of The Wettest, Too `

Spectators watch near record flood waters in the Winooski
River blast past Winooski on July 11, 2023. Not only did 
the past year bring lots of extreme weather to Vermont,
it also turned out to be the hottest year on 
record, at least as measured in Burlington. 

 It's official. 

For the first time since they started keeping track of these things back in the 1880s, Burlington, Vermont had its first year with an average temperature of 50 degrees.  

That beats the old record for hottest year, set in 2012, which came out to 49.9 degrees. 

Even more remarkably, this makes it the fourth year in a row that was among Burlington's top 10 record hottest years.  The years 1953 and 1898 are tied for the 10th warmest years in Burlington, but all of the top nine years have been since 1998, just a quarter century. 

By contrast, 1978 was the last  year to score in the top ten coldest, and that year barely made #10.

Climate change is really re-writing the weather history books in Vermont, as well as the rest of the planet. It's not just Burlington, after all. When the data is all in, it's widely expect that the entire globe will have had its hottest year on record in 2023.

In fact, some climatologists believe 2023 was the world's hottest year in the past 125,000 years.

Back here in Vermont, climatologists say that in general, Vermont's is not only getting hotter. It's becoming wetter through climate change, though that wettest will be interrupted by at times more serious drought. 

That trend bore out big time in 2023.  Burlington had its seventh wettest year on record, with 44.78 inches. This is despite largely missing out on the torrents of rain in July and the area experiencing a spring drought.   

The correlation with climate change and wetness in the Burlington weather records isn't as strong as it is with temperatures but it's there.   Six of Burlington's top 10 wettest years have happened since 1998, but only one of the top ten driest years happened in that time frame (2001, to be exact).

Over the course of 2023, Burlington saw daily record highs broken or tied on 10 days. That included the hottest temperature on record for all of October, with 86 degrees. Only one record low was hit, on May 18. 

Last year, I didn't think we'd have a fourth year in a row with a top 10 hottest temperature. Although I've been proven wrong this year, I do wonder if 2024 will be among the hottest on record in Vermont. Maybe, but doubtful, though the world is expected to break 2023's mark for hottest year, or at least come close to it. 

Here in Vermont, if 2024 isn't another top 10 warmest year, it will very, very likely be warmer than normal. Even with climate change, it's still possible to have the occasional cooler than average year thrown in over the next few decades. But they'll be increasingly few and far between.

I also highly doubt we'll ever have another year that ends up in the list of top 10 coolest, unless something dramatic and unlikely happens, like a massive volcanic eruption on the scale or bigger than the 1815 Tambora eruption. That caused temporary cooling, and gave us in Vermont the famous "Year Without A Summer in 1816

Tomorrow, I'll have a review of some of the many weather extremes Vermont endured in 2023.