Climate-Zone.com

HomeCitiesCanadaBritish ColumbiaRichmondTools › Climate trends

Has the climate in Richmond changed?

Richmond has warmed about 1.1°F between 1977 and 2020.

About 0.3°F per decade, measured from Richmond's official daily weather records, 1977–2020. Individual years still bounce around — some recent ones came in cool — but the long-term line has clearly risen.

Is that a lot? Richmond's climate has warmed more slowly than most other cities in Canada.

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
+0.8°F
1970s
50.4°F
Recent
51.2°F
A steady upward drift

Richmond's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1977 to 2020.

42°44°46°48°50°52°54°1977: 51.8°F1978: 49.4°F1979: 49.8°F1980: 49.9°F1981: 50.9°F1982: 49.4°F1983: 50.8°F1984: 49.3°F1985: 48.2°F1986: 51.0°F1987: 52.0°F1988: 51.3°F1989: 50.8°F1990: 51.1°F1991: 50.9°F1992: 52.3°F1993: 50.4°F1994: 51.8°F1995: 52.1°F1996: 50.2°F1997: 52.2°F1998: 52.6°F1999: 43.7°F2000: 50.8°F2001: 50.4°F2002: 50.8°F2003: 51.6°F2004: 52.7°F2005: 51.4°F2006: 51.0°F2007: 50.3°F2008: 51.9°F2009: 49.5°F2010: 51.7°F2011: 49.8°F2012: 50.8°F2013: 51.5°F2014: 52.4°F2015: 53.4°F2016: 52.9°F2017: 51.2°F2018: 52.5°F2019: 51.5°F2020: 47.2°Flong-term trend197719801990200020102020
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.

-0.5°0.0°+0.5°+1.0°+1.5°January: +1.1°F+1.1JFebruary: +0.1°F+0.1FMarch: -0.2°F-0.2MApril: +0.1°F+0.1AMay: +1.1°F+1.1MJune: +0.8°F+0.8JJuly: +1.4°F+1.4JAugust: +1.0°F+1.0ASeptember: +0.9°F+0.9SOctober: +0.4°F+0.4ONovember: +0.8°F+0.8NDecember: +1.0°F+1.0D

July has warmed the most — about 1.4°F. The warming runs across the whole year, not just one season.

Methodology & sources

Temperature — 1991–2020 normals computed from 27 years of daily observations at Richmond Nature Park, a weather station, about 3 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →