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While the new year already has a handful of days on the books, 2023 officially was a record year.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service, 2023 was the hottest ever recorded in Texas.
The data, which goes back to 2000, said that 2023 had the highest monthly mean average temperature. The average temperature in the state measured 68.1 degrees last year, beating the previous 2012 record by 0.3 degrees. Every year since 2000 in Texas has been warmer than the 20th century average, said John Nielsen-Gammon, state climatologist. Last year was 3.5 degrees hotter than the 20th-century average in the state.
“That consistent warmth is because of climate change,” Nielsen-Gammon said.
According to the weather service, 2023 recorded 49 different records for highest max temperatures in a day.
During the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ board of directors Dec. 19 meeting, ERCOT’s chief meteorologist, Chris Coleman, explained potential reasons why 2023 was so warm. At the time, ERCOT’s data showed this past year’s January to October period was the warmest that the specific timeframe has been recorded in history.
Coleman said the January through October period was the warmest of all time both in Texas and globally.
Coleman first told board members that the Jan. 14, 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai, an underwater volcano in the South Pacific near Tonga, blasted 50 million tons of water into the air, which could warm the Earth for years.
Coleman said the huge amount of launched water turned into water vapor, which has a warming effect. He also said considering Mt. Pinatubo, a similarly sized volcanic eruption that happened above ground in 1991, the 2022 eruption is expected to influence global temperatures for about two to three years.
