2019 was the 2nd hottest year on record for Charlotte, new NWS figures show
Charlotteans sweltered through the Queen City’s second hottest year on record in 2019, the National Weather Service reports.
“If you thought 2019 was a hot year, you were correct,” the NWS office in Greer, S.C., tweeted Thursday.
Charlotte’s daily temperature averaged 63.5 degrees last year, meteorologist Rodney Hinson of the NWS office in Greer, S.C., told the Charlotte Observer in a phone interview.
Charlotte’s hottest year on record is 1990, when the daily temperature averaged 64 degrees, Hinson said.
NWS weather records for Charlotte date to 1878, according to the meteorologist. Five of Charlotte’s 10 warmest years on record have happened over the past decade.
The streak started in 2015 when Charlotte’s average temp hit 62.7 degrees, followed by 63.0 degrees in 2016, 63.1 in 2017 and 62.6 in 2018, NWS records show.
Asheville in the North Carolina mountains, meanwhile, also experienced its hottest year on record in 2019, with an average daily temperature of 59.1, according to the NWS. The city’s previous record of 58.5 degrees came in 2017, Hinson said.
Statewide from January to November, 2019’s average temperature of 62.6 degrees was the second warmest on record based on data since 1985, the North Carolina Climate Office at N.C. State University in Raleigh reported in early December.
The state climate office expects to release final 2019 data in the next two weeks, weather officials said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will also release national data in the days or weeks ahead, according to Hinson.
He expects the state and national results will reflect similar warming trends. NWS meteorologists do not offer opinions on what might have caused the 2010s warming trend in the Charlotte area and any other region, he said.
This story was originally published January 4, 2020 at 5:00 AM.