BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – 2024′s average temperature blew 2023′s record out of the water.
2024 was the hottest year Vermont has seen in nearly 150 years. Experts say it’s a wake-up call to a changing climate that already had them alarmed.
Last winter, Scott Whittier watched temperatures creep up from his National Weather Service office in Burlington.
“I knew we were up there, but we still had ten months to go,” said Whittier.
Near the end of the year, 2024′s average temperature remained alarmingly high.
“It probably wasn’t until the end of November, I’m like, ‘this could be something substantial’,” said Whittier.
It’s also nearly one degree warmer than 2023′s record-setting high – the biggest annual jump in the state’s history – stirring concern among local climate experts.
“That made a lot of folks sit up and sort of pay attention and really realize that things are not going to be the same anymore,” said state climatologist Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux.
The National Weather Service says a warm winter caused by an El Niño year plus an abnormally warm fall are to blame for 2024′s high numbers.
It’s the latest and greatest high in a chain of increasingly warm years – the top ten hottest – all since 1998.
The state climatologist’s top concern is where that leaves Vermonters.
“What that means for affordability and housing, tourism, recreation, the whole gamut because it’s all tied in,” said Dupigny-Giroux.
Whether 2025 will bring even more heat remains to be seen. It’s a La Niña year which makes for a cooler winter.
Plus, while annual temperatures are rising overall, they do tend to ebb and flow from year to year.
Still, the rise from 2023 to 2024 is proof that change is coming quickly.
“I don’t see that happening, but we still have eleven and a half months to go, so anything can happen,” said Whittier.
It isn’t just Vermont setting a record – 2024 was also the planet’s warmest year on record according to the National Center for Environmental Information or NOAA.