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Has the climate in Sault Ste. Marie changed?

How Sault Ste. Marie's climate has changed

About 0.1°F per decade, measured from Sault Ste. Marie's official daily weather records, 1971–2012. Individual years still bounce around — some recent ones came in cool — but the long-term line has clearly risen.

Is that a lot? Sault Ste. Marie'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.

Average temperature
+0.8°F
1970s
39.6°F
Recent
40.4°F
A steady upward drift

Sault Ste. Marie's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1971 to 2012.

24°26°28°30°32°34°36°38°40°42°44°46°1971: 39.7°F1972: 37.6°F1973: 41.9°F1974: 39.0°F1975: 40.8°F1976: 38.6°F1977: 39.8°F1978: 38.2°F1979: 38.6°F1980: 38.8°F1981: 40.3°F1982: 39.0°F1983: 41.5°F1984: 40.4°F1985: 38.9°F1986: 40.1°F1987: 43.1°F1988: 40.2°F1989: 38.3°F1990: 41.0°F1991: 41.3°F1992: 38.4°F1993: 38.7°F1994: 39.2°F1995: 40.1°F1996: 37.9°F1997: 39.0°F1998: 44.2°F1999: 42.4°F2000: 40.6°F2001: 42.8°F2002: 41.2°F2003: 39.8°F2004: 39.8°F2005: 42.3°F2006: 43.6°F2007: 42.0°F2008: 39.9°F2009: 39.8°F2010: 43.7°F2011: 42.0°F2012: 25.6°Flong-term trend197119801990200020102012
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°+2.5°January: +1.2°F+1.2JFebruary: +1.7°F+1.7FMarch: +0.3°F+0.3MApril: +0.7°F+0.7AMay: +0.1°F+0.1MJune: +1.5°F+1.5JJuly: +0.3°F+0.3JAugust: +0.8°F+0.8ASeptember: +1.7°F+1.7SOctober: +0.6°F+0.6ONovember: +1.2°F+1.2NDecember: +2.0°F+2.0D

December has warmed the most — about 2.0°F. The warming runs across the whole year, not just one season.

Methodology & sources

Temperature — 1991–2020 normals computed from 21 years of daily observations at Sault Ste Marie A, a weather station, about 13 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →