Meteorological Summer & Temp Trends

Happy meteorological summer! This week, we examine the average summer temperature trend in our Climate Matters markets. Summers are trending hotter for 92% of the markets we analyzed, with locations in Texas and the Intermountain West experiencing the most warming since 1970.

Additionally, we examined summer temperature trends in all of the NCEI climate divisions. Much like the individual market analyses, warming trends are most dramatic in Texas and the West. The vast majority of the country is warming, with only a few climate divisions, mostly in the Northern Plains, showing little or no warming (although that region is warming dramatically in fall and winter).

This is a reminder that even as increasing greenhouse gases raise global temperatures, warming will not be uniform across all areas. Nonetheless, hotter summers raise the risk of heat-related illnesses, such as dehydration, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke.