Halfway home, 2024 is Rochester’s warmest on record so far

July is officially here, which means we have crossed the halfway point of 2024 with January through June in the books. It may surprise some of you to learn these first six months have been Rochester’s warmest since records began in the late 1800s.

These data feature mean average temperature, taking into account both highs and lows. Through June, Rochester’s average temperature landed at 48.1°, coming in at 0.3° above 2012 and a full degree higher than 1921 (second the third place, respectively). Our months thus far have been broken down like this:

January: 27th warmest

February: 2nd warmest

March: 8th warmest

April: 19th warmest

May: 4th warmest

June: 13th warmest

Individually, none of these months were warmest on record. But 5/6 of them placed in the top 20 and 3 of those 5 were top 10. It’s been sort a slow & steady type deal to get to this point.

It is important to note, a warm first half of the year does not necessarily guarantee anything into the second half. It’s certainly possible the aggregate of these next six months corrects back downward. Or, this serves as a head start to what could ultimately be our warmest year on record.

Meteorologist’s note: Invariably, articles like this come with heavy climate-related undertones. While you are free to debate the cause of these trends, I try to present the above simply as pure data, void of speculation on probable causes. Use of the moniker “on record” relates to the timeframe official temperature data in Rochester has been recorded, from the late 1800s to now. We are well aware Earth has been around far longer than that ~150 year sample size.

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