COLUMBIA, S.C. — This entire year we have been talking about our global climate and the many things that play into the conditions that we see.
Global-scale events like El Nino can have a big influence on what we see and data shows that it could play a huge role in how hot our globe will be going into 2024.
Here in the Midlands, 8 out of the 10 hottest years have been since 2000. This clear trend in hotter weather already sees 2023 landing in the 20 hottest years on record here in Columbia.
While 2023 won’t be the hottest on record locally, we can’t always tie what we see to the larger global picture.
According to information from our partners at Climate Central the past 12-month period starting back in November of 2022 is the hottest we have seen in modern record with over 1.3 degrees of warming over the average.
These record-breaking temperatures might only trend hotter in the coming months as El Nino adds to the already record ocean heat we have seen recently.
What this boils down to is that realistically 2023 will probably end up beating out 2020 and 2016 for the hottest year we have experienced in modern day.
