In what will go down as the hottest year on record globally, Williamsport logged its hottest year in 2023 according to readings taken by the National Weather Service.
“You take the average temperature for the entire year of 53.9 degrees in Williamsport,” said Mark Pellerito, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Binghamton, New York. “That just eclipsed the old record of 53.8 degrees, which was the warmest year on record from 2012.”
The record comes from an average of temperature readings taken throughout the year at the Williamsport Regional Airport.
Pellerito says both climate change and the El Nino weather pattern have contributed to rising overall temperatures in recent years.
The specific impact of human-caused climate change can be hard to pinpoint during a heat wave or other extreme weather, but Pellerito said it’s always in the background as a factor.
“It’s difficult to point to a single year and say…that was because of climate change,” he said. “However, it does load the dice to make warmer than normal, or even record temperatures more possible.”
The European climate agency Copernicus reported on Tuesday that global temperatures exceeded annual records in 2023, according to the Associated Press.
The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre region saw its second-warmest year on record according to readings from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport, Pellerito said.
