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Has the climate in Peterborough changed?

Peterborough has warmed about 2.8°F between 1971 and 2012.

About 0.7°F per decade, measured from Peterborough'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? Peterborough'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
+2.0°F
1970s
43.3°F
Recent
45.4°F
A steady upward drift

Peterborough's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1971 to 2012.

40°42°44°46°48°50°52°54°1971: 44.1°F1972: 42.0°F1973: 45.5°F1974: 42.9°F1975: 44.5°F1976: 41.9°F1977: 43.8°F1978: 41.9°F1979: 43.6°F1980: 42.1°F1981: 43.0°F1982: 43.2°F1983: 44.5°F1984: 43.8°F1985: 44.0°F1986: 44.5°F1987: 45.8°F1988: 44.8°F1989: 42.8°F1990: 46.0°F1991: 46.3°F1992: 42.7°F1993: 43.2°F1994: 43.5°F1995: 44.7°F1996: 44.3°F1997: 44.9°F1998: 49.6°F1999: 46.8°F2000: 44.2°F2001: 45.8°F2002: 45.8°F2003: 43.1°F2004: 43.3°F2005: 45.0°F2006: 52.8°F2007: 46.7°F2008: 43.9°F2009: 43.1°F2010: 44.4°F2011: 44.2°F2012: 46.3°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.

-0.5°0.0°+0.5°+1.0°+1.5°+2.0°January: +0.7°F+0.7JFebruary: +1.1°F+1.1FMarch: +1.2°F+1.2MApril: +0.3°F+0.3AMay: -0.3°F-0.3MJune: +1.0°F+1.0JJuly: -0.1°F-0.1JAugust: +0.5°F+0.5ASeptember: +1.2°F+1.2SOctober: +0.8°F+0.8ONovember: +0.7°F+0.7NDecember: +1.9°F+1.9D

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 Peterborough Trent U, a weather station, about 8 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →