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Has the climate in Bellingham changed?

Bellingham has warmed about 0.8°F between 1994 and 2020.

About 0.3°F per decade, measured from Bellingham's official daily weather records, 1994–2020. Individual years still bounce around — some recent ones came in cool — but the long-term line has clearly risen.

Is that a lot? Bellingham's climate has warmed more slowly than most other cities in United States.

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.

Freezing nights
2 fewer nights
1970s
35 / yr
→
Recent
33 / yr
Milder winters — fewer frosts
Average temperature
+0.8°F
1970s
51.5°F
→
Recent
52.3°F
A steady upward drift
Hot days above 90°F
about the same
1970s
0 / yr
→
Recent
0 / yr
About the same number of heat days
Rainy days
18 fewer days
1970s
168 / yr
→
Recent
150 / yr
Drier on average

Bellingham's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1994 to 2020.

49°51°53°55°1994: 52.1°F1995: 52.5°F1996: 50.1°F1997: 52.4°F1998: 52.8°F1999: 51.1°F2000: 50.9°F2001: 51.2°F2002: 50.7°F2003: 52.4°F2004: 52.9°F2005: 52.1°F2006: 51.7°F2007: 51.0°F2008: 50.8°F2009: 51.2°F2010: 52.4°F2011: 50.6°F2012: 51.2°F2013: 51.6°F2014: 52.7°F2015: 53.5°F2016: 53.3°F2017: 51.3°F2018: 52.0°F2019: 51.8°F2020: 53.1°Flong-term trend1994200020102020
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.

-1.0°-0.5°0.0°+0.5°+1.0°January: +0.8°F+0.8JFebruary: -0.6°F-0.6FMarch: -0.2°F-0.2MApril: -0.1°F-0.1AMay: +0.2°F+0.2MJune: +0.4°F+0.4JJuly: +0.4°F+0.4JAugust: +0.4°F+0.4ASeptember: +0.0°F+0.0SOctober: +0.1°F+0.1ONovember: +0.2°F+0.2NDecember: +0.4°F+0.4D

January has warmed the most — about 0.8°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 White Rock Campbell Scientific, a weather station, about 36 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →