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Has the climate in Big Sky changed?

Big Sky has warmed about 1.2°F since 1998.

About 0.4°F per decade, measured from Big Sky's official daily weather records, 1998–2025. Individual years still bounce around — some recent ones came in cool — but the long-term line has clearly risen.

Is that a lot? Big Sky's warming is broadly in line with other cities in United States — 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.

Freezing nights
273 more nights
1970s
0 / yr
Recent
273 / yr
Colder winters — more frosts
Average temperature
+0.5°F
1970s
36.1°F
Recent
36.6°F
A steady upward drift
Hot days above 90°F
6 more days
1970s
0 / yr
Recent
6 / yr
More days of serious heat
Rainy days
108 more days
1970s
0 / yr
Recent
108 / yr
Wetter on average

Big Sky's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1998 to 2025.

32°34°36°38°40°1998: 33.6°F1999: 36.1°F2000: 36.3°F2001: 37.0°F2002: 35.2°F2003: 37.6°F2004: 36.4°F2005: 35.8°F2006: 36.7°F2007: 37.9°F2008: 35.2°F2009: 35.1°F2010: 36.1°F2011: 35.5°F2012: 38.2°F2013: 35.9°F2014: 36.7°F2015: 38.1°F2016: 38.1°F2017: 37.4°F2018: 37.5°F2019: 35.0°F2020: 36.0°F2021: 37.6°F2022: 34.9°F2023: 35.3°F2024: 37.6°F2025: 37.9°Flong-term trend19982000201020202025
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.

In day-to-day terms, that long-term shift shows up as about 183 more freezing nights a year and about 4 more days above 90°F compared with the 1970s.

Methodology & sources

Temperature — 1991–2020 normals computed from 22 years of daily observations at West Yellowstone, a weather station, about 73 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →