Salt Lake City recently recorded its hottest June and July on record. According to climate scientists, that trend mirrors what has been observed over the last 30 years.
If you’ve spent any time in Utah over the past few months, you’ve probably noticed how hot it’s been. Salt Lake City has recorded more than a dozen days of temperatures over 100 degrees this year and matched an all-time record of 107 degrees on June 15th. The Salt Lake Valley averages only five days a year over 100 degrees, according to data from the National Weather Service.
The Wasatch Back has felt the heat too, with temperatures regularly in the 90s and a handful of days even topping the 100 degree mark. But is that just a fluke or reflective of global climate change?
According to Climate Scientist Mike Palecki with the National Center for Environmental Information, the current “normal” -- or the temperatures taken over the last 30 years -- show the warmest averages in the 150-year history of daily weather record keeping.
“Usually, the ending time is on a year with a zero, so 1961-90 was kind of just beginning to show a little bit of warming in the west, and then the last two normals, the 81-2010 and 1991-2020 showed a tremendous amount of warming compared to, say, the 20th century average,” Palecki says. “We definitely have the warmest normals we’ve ever had for the current period in the United States.”
With the exception of a few pockets in the upper Midwest and Great Plains regions, he says those warming trends are seen throughout the country.
Palecki says the normals can help illustrate how the climate has changed because the measurements are updated every decade. Each new normal can then be compared to past ones or a 20th century average.
“We update these every 10 years so there are past normals periods that we can look back on and see how the normals have changed over time if we want to,” he says. “We can also take the 150 year data and do trends and do other kinds of analysis that allow us to look at climate change over time. We do that when we’re looking at climate change specifically, the normals have a more utilitarian purpose, which is to characterize today’s climate, although it does have the fingerprints of climate change in it.”
The consequences of warming temperatures have a cascading effect in the Wasatch Back. Not only does it mean hotter summers, but warmer winters with less annual snowpack, leading to droughts like the historic one currently experienced throughout Utah.
According to the Utah Division of Water Resources, 95% of Northern Utah’s water supply comes from melting snow. Add on top of that the economic consequences felt by ski resort-dependent economies during bad winters, and the region has a vested interest in keeping the climate cool.
KPCW news reports on climate change issues are brought to you by the Park City Climate Fund at the Park City Community Foundation, an initiative that engages Park City in implementing local, high-impact climate solutions that have potential to be effective in similar communities.
