As planet cooked, Las Vegas 2023 temperatures were below average
The Earth shattered global heat records in 2023, the European climate agency reported Tuesday.
Counter to the planet’s trend, heat in the Las Vegas Valley was below average for the year in three temperature measurements.
Officially measured at Harry Reid International Airport:
— The mean temperature for the year (average of the high and low each day) was 69.3 degrees. The norm (since records began in 1937) is 70.1 degrees.
— The maximum average high for each day of 2023 was 79.4 degrees, compared to the average of 80.5.
— The minimum daily low temperature mean was 59.1 degrees, compared to the average of 59.6.
But most valley residents will remember the heat of July, which the Las Vegas office of the National Weather Service called the hottest prolonged heat in the valley’s recorded history.
July was the hottest month in Las Vegas weather history, with an average daily temperature of 97.3 degrees, well above the July average of 96.2 degrees.
As for the year ending up below normal, several other months ended up being average or below average, said meteorologist Jenn Varian. She compiled the annual 2023 weather report recently posted at weather.gov/vegas.
Other Las Vegas 2023 weather figures
— Rainfall at the airport was 4.59 inches, compared to the norm of 4.18 inches.
— The strongest wind gust was 63 mph on Feb. 21.
— The most rain fell at the airport on Sept. 1 at 0.88 of an inch during the Labor Day weekend storm that hit several areas of the valley hard.
— The highest temperature was 116 degrees on July 16 (a degree below the valley record).
— The lowest temperature was 30 degrees on Feb. 1.
— Las Vegas had 183 days of clear skies, 146 days of partly cloudy and 36 cloudy days.
— The windiest day (average wind velocity for the entire day) was 18.9 mph on June 19.
— The most precipitation recorded in the region was 31.14 inches in a Regional Flood Control District gauge in Rainbow Canyon on Mount Charleston. A large portion of that was likely snowmelt, said weather service meteorologist Clay Morgan.
Global heat in 2023
The European climate agency Copernicus said the year was 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.66 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times. That’s barely below the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit that the world hoped to stay within in the 2015 Paris climate accord to avoid the most severe effects of warming.
And January 2024 is on track to be so warm that for the first time a 12-month period will exceed the 1.5-degree threshold, Copernicus Deputy Director Samantha Burgess said. Scientists have repeatedly said that Earth would need to average 1.5 degrees of warming over two or three decades to be a technical breach of the threshold.
The 1.5 degree goal “has to be (kept) alive because lives are at risk and choices have to be made,” Burgess said. “And these choices don’t impact you and I but they impact our children and our grandchildren.”
The record heat made life miserable and sometimes deadly in Europe, North America, China and many other places last year. But scientists say a warming climate is also to blame for more extreme weather events, like the lengthy drought that devastated the Horn of Africa, the torrential downpours that wiped out dams and killed thousands in Libya and the Canada wildfires that fouled the air from North America to Europe.
Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VegasMarvRJ on X. Associated Press science reporter Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.
