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Has the climate in Chatham changed?

Chatham has warmed about 2.3°F between 1971 and 2020.

About 0.5°F per decade, measured from Chatham's official daily weather records, 1971–2020. Individual years still bounce around — some recent ones came in cool — but the long-term line has clearly risen.

Is that a lot? Chatham's warming is broadly in line with other cities in Canada — neither unusually fast nor unusually slow.

What has actually changed

Each card compares the 1970s (the first ten years of the record) with recent years (the last ten) — the same span the headline and the chart use.

Average temperature
+1.7°F
1970s
46.8°F
Recent
48.4°F
A steady upward drift

Chatham's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1971 to 2020.

44°46°48°50°52°1971: 47.6°F1972: 45.6°F1973: 48.3°F1974: 46.1°F1975: 47.5°F1976: 45.3°F1977: 49.2°F1978: 45.1°F1979: 45.5°F1980: 45.6°F1981: 46.8°F1982: 46.5°F1983: 47.7°F1984: 46.9°F1985: 47.0°F1986: 47.6°F1987: 49.0°F1988: 47.6°F1989: 45.9°F1990: 48.9°F1991: 49.4°F1992: 46.3°F1993: 46.6°F1994: 46.9°F1995: 47.3°F1996: 46.1°F1997: 46.8°F1998: 51.1°F1999: 48.9°F2000: 47.6°F2001: 49.6°F2002: 48.9°F2003: 46.6°F2004: 47.5°F2005: 48.3°F2006: 49.8°F2007: 48.8°F2008: 47.5°F2009: 47.3°F2010: 49.3°F2011: 48.8°F2012: 50.9°F2013: 47.6°F2014: 45.4°F2015: 47.4°F2016: 50.1°F2017: 49.0°F2018: 47.4°F2019: 46.8°F2020: 50.8°Flong-term trend197119801990200020102020
a warmer-than-average year a cooler-than-average year

Each bar is one year. Most recent years sit above the older ones. Some recent years still came in cool — warming is a slope, not a straight climb.

When in the year the change shows up

How much warmer each month is now than in the 1970s. Useful if you garden or care about a particular season — otherwise the headline above already has the answer.

0.0°+0.5°+1.0°+1.5°+2.0°January: +1.6°F+1.6JFebruary: +1.5°F+1.5FMarch: +0.4°F+0.4MApril: +0.8°F+0.8AMay: +0.8°F+0.8MJune: +1.2°F+1.2JJuly: +0.7°F+0.7JAugust: +0.8°F+0.8ASeptember: +1.4°F+1.4SOctober: +1.1°F+1.1ONovember: +0.8°F+0.8NDecember: +1.7°F+1.7D

December has warmed the most — about 1.7°F. The warming runs across the whole year, not just one season.

Methodology & sources

Temperature — 1991–2020 normals computed from 30 years of daily observations at New Glasgow, a weather station, about 46 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →