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Has the climate in Whitehorse changed?

Whitehorse has warmed about 2.1°F between 1971 and 2012.

About 0.5°F per decade, measured from Whitehorse'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? Whitehorse'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
+2.3°F
1970s
29.9°F
Recent
32.2°F
A steady upward drift

Whitehorse's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1971 to 2012.

10°12°14°16°18°20°22°24°26°28°30°32°34°36°1971: 27.6°F1972: 28.2°F1973: 27.0°F1974: 29.2°F1975: 26.8°F1976: 32.2°F1977: 32.0°F1978: 32.1°F1979: 29.9°F1980: 30.8°F1981: 34.3°F1982: 27.2°F1983: 29.3°F1984: 32.3°F1985: 30.8°F1986: 32.6°F1987: 34.6°F1988: 32.4°F1989: 31.3°F1990: 29.3°F1991: 32.2°F1992: 32.5°F1993: 33.2°F1994: 31.3°F1995: 32.1°F1996: 4.0°F1997: 21.2°F1998: 32.3°F1999: 31.7°F2000: 32.6°F2001: 32.4°F2002: 33.0°F2003: 32.2°F2004: 34.0°F2005: 34.3°F2006: 30.0°F2007: 31.0°F2008: 29.7°F2009: 31.2°F2010: 33.7°F2011: 31.6°F2012: 33.4°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.

-1.5°-1.0°-0.5°0.0°+0.5°+1.0°+1.5°+2.0°+2.5°+3.0°+3.5°January: +3.2°F+3.2JFebruary: +2.7°F+2.7FMarch: -1.1°F-1.1MApril: +1.1°F+1.1AMay: +1.1°F+1.1MJune: +1.6°F+1.6JJuly: +0.5°F+0.5JAugust: +0.5°F+0.5ASeptember: +0.3°F+0.3SOctober: +0.2°F+0.2ONovember: +1.4°F+1.4NDecember: +3.2°F+3.2D

December has warmed the most — about 3.2°F. The warming runs across the whole year, not just one season.

Methodology & sources

Temperature — 1991–2020 normals computed from 20 years of daily observations at Whitehorse A, a weather station, about 1 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →