Rhode Island Climate – Sep 2026September 2026 Update

Novarupta (Katmai) eruption

The largest volcanic eruption anywhere in the world in the 20th century - 13 km3 of magma, about thirty times the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption - at Novarupta in Alaska on 6-8 June 1912. Ash reached 100,000 ft and cooled the Northern Hemisphere by roughly 0.3°C over 1912-13. Unlike a tropical eruption such as Pinatubo, a high-latitude eruption's haze stays in its own hemisphere, so it did little to the Southern Hemisphere.

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, Alaska Volcano Observatory, National Park Service, Oman et al. 2005

The Great New England Hurricane of 1938

Rhode Island was hardest hit: a Category 3 landfall near Newport with winds over 120 mph and a 12-15 ft storm surge arriving at high tide put parts of downtown Providence under 14 ft of water. Around 600 people died across the region, a large share of them in Rhode Island.

NWS Boston

Post-WWII industrial expansion begins

After the Second World War, coal and oil use grew rapidly across Europe, North America and the Soviet Union. Global sulphur dioxide emissions rose from about 30 to about 130 million tonnes a year by 1980, and the sulphate haze they formed masked part of the greenhouse warming underneath - the effect known as 'global dimming'.

Klimont et al. 2013

The summer of 1953

1953 gave Rhode Island 12.8 heatwave days, its 3rd-highest of the 1950-2025 record, though it ranks only 18th-warmest by annual mean - a summer event, not a warm year.

Northeast Regional Climate Center, LIFE

The 1962-66 Northeast drought

1965 was Rhode Island's driest year in this site's 1950-2025 record - 716 mm, 39% below its 1961-90 average. It was not one dry year but five: 1962-66 as a whole averaged 19% below that baseline.

USGS, Seager et al. 2012, NYC Emergency Management

Agung eruption

Agung's eruption in Bali put a veil of sulphate haze into the stratosphere that cooled global temperature by about 0.3°C over 1963-66.

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

US Clean Air Act

The 1970 Clean Air Act set strict national standards for sulphur dioxide and particulates, and American skies got measurably cleaner over the decades that followed. There is a climate sting in that success: sulphate aerosols reflect sunlight, so removing them removed a cooling effect that had been partly masking greenhouse warming. Measured here, Rhode Island averaged +1.49°C warmer across 2006-2025 than across the two decades before the Act, 1951-1970 - the 4th-largest rise of the 49 states whose records reach back that far. Cleaning the air was unambiguously right for human health. It also uncovered warming that was already there, and Rhode Island is near the top of the list.

US EPA

The 1973-74 La Niña

The strongest La Niña of the 1950-present record, part of a multi-year cool phase that also included a second, separate La Niña in 1975-76.

ONI -2.0°C · RONI -1.9°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker

Pacific Decadal Oscillation flips to a warm phase

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a North Pacific pattern, and its influence on this side of the country is weak and indirect - mostly through how it nudges the winter jet stream downstream. Its 1976-77 flip marks a genuine shift in Pacific-basin climate, but for eastern states the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is the ocean cycle that matters more.

Learn more →

The Blizzard of 1978

Rhode Island was effectively shut down by the Blizzard of 1978, with driving bans in force for days and abandoned cars buried along I-95 and the state's other highways. The storm's heaviest snow and its coastal destruction were centred on Massachusetts just to the north.

Mass Moments

Global SO2 emissions peak

Global sulphur dioxide emissions peak at about 130 million tonnes a year, then begin a long decline as Europe, North America and Japan clean up their air. As the aerosol mask thins, the rate of global warming picks up through the 1980s.

Klimont et al. 2013

El Chichón eruption

A sulphur-rich eruption in Mexico whose aerosol cloud stayed in the stratosphere for more than two years, cooling the Northern Hemisphere by about 0.2°C.

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program

1982-83 El Niño

El Niño has only a weak pull on Rhode Island's winter rainfall - it is not one of the seven states where ENSO reliably moves it. In 1982-83 Rhode Island's winter rainfall was close to its 1961-90 average (-2%), with temperatures +2.0°C. On NOAA's RONI index, which strips out background ocean warming, this is the strongest El Niño since 1950.

ONI +2.1°C · RONI +2.4°C

NOAA CPC, NOAA CPC (2)ENSO Tracker

Daytime warming catches up with the night-led pattern

Across 1961-90, 81% of the world's land saw nights warming faster than days. Across 1991-2020 the pattern reversed: 70% saw days warming faster, as the industrial haze that had been dimming daytime sunshine was cleaned up. The study compares two fixed thirty-year windows; measured as a turning point, this site's own global series turns around 1982.

Zhong et al. 2023

1990-91: mild winters and warm years

1990 is Rhode Island's 15th-warmest year in this site's 1950-2025 record. Mild winters did most of it: January-February 1990 was the warmest start to a year the contiguous US had recorded, a record that stood until 1998.

News & Record / AP (1991), NOAA NCEI

Mount Pinatubo erupts

Pinatubo's cooling does not show in Rhode Island's own record: 1993, two years after the June 1991 eruption, was an unremarkable year there, 35th-coldest of 76. A single large eruption can hold temperatures down for two or three years; it cannot reverse the trend.

Learn more →

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flips to a warm phase

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flipped to a warm phase in 1995, and for the Northeast its reach is through the Atlantic hurricane season: the warm phase since includes Irene in 2011 and Sandy in 2012. It is a natural cycle of roughly 60-70 years, so it shifts the baseline rather than driving the long-term trend.

Learn more →

1997-98 El Niño

In 1997-98 Rhode Island's winter rainfall ran +30% against the 1961-90 average, with temperatures +3.4°C - though ENSO's pull on rainfall here is weak. It is often treated as the textbook strong El Niño.

ONI +2.4°C · RONI +2.3°C

NOAA CPC, NOAA NCEIENSO Tracker

Pacific Decadal Oscillation flips back to a cool phase

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation returned to a cool phase around 1998-99. Its direct effects are western - drier conditions across the south-west, changes in North Pacific fisheries - and its influence on this side of the country is weak and indirect. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which flipped warm in 1995, is the ocean cycle with more bearing on eastern weather.

Learn more →

The October 2005 Northeast floods

October 2005 was the wettest month ever recorded in Providence - 15.38 inches, more than any month in the city's history. Rhode Island's 2005 finished 4th wettest of 76 years in this site's record; the state escaped the worst of the flooding, which hit interior New England hardest.

USGS, US Army Corps of Engineers

Start of the sustained rise in US heatwave frequency

Rhode Island's own Heatwave Days (WSDI) count rose from a 1961-90 average of 2.5 days a year to 2.8 in 2016-25 - a modest rise, and one of the smallest in the country against a 50-state average of 2.4x.

World Bank CCKP (CCKP), NOAA Climate at a Glance

The Northeast's record summer of 2010

2010 gave Rhode Island 11.6 heatwave days, its 4th-highest of the 1950-2025 record, alongside its 9th-warmest year overall.

NOAA Climate.gov, NOAA NCEI, Northeast Regional Climate Center

Hurricane Sandy (Superstorm Sandy)

Rhode Island took coastal flooding and severe beach erosion along its south shore, with widespread power loss. Like Connecticut, it was exposed to a surge driven along Block Island Sound rather than to the storm's strongest winds, which stayed well to the south and west.

NWS Mount Holly, NJDEP, Britannica

2012: the warmest year on record for the contiguous US

2012 is Rhode Island's warmest year in this site's 1950-2025 record. Nationally it was the warmest year the contiguous United States had recorded, 3.2°F above the 20th-century average, with a record-warm March that broke more than 15,000 daily records; 19 states set record-warm years.

NOAA Climate.gov, NOAA Climate.gov (2)

Post-2013 acceleration in US temperatures

6 of Rhode Island's ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2013, and 9 of the ten since 2000, with 2012 the warmest of all.

NOAA Climate at a Glance

2015-16 El Niño

In 2015-16 Rhode Island's winter rainfall ran +17% against the 1961-90 average, with temperatures +4.5°C - though ENSO's pull on rainfall here is weak. By the raw ONI index it was the strongest El Niño ever measured - a reminder that a strong index does not guarantee a strong local outcome.

ONI +2.6°C · RONI +2.3°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker

2015-2025: the eleven warmest years on record

Globally, the eleven warmest years on record have all happened since 2015. Rhode Island does not follow it: its hottest year is still 2012. Six of its own eleven warmest fall in the 2015-2025 span, with 2012, 2010, 2006, 1999 and 1998 outside it. Rhode Island is one of 15 states where 2012 still tops the list.

Learn more →

Low-sulphur shipping fuel rule (IMO 2020)

New international shipping rules cut the sulphur allowed in ship fuel from 3.5% to 0.5% almost overnight, removing about 8 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide a year. With less sulphate haze over the oceans, it may have added around 0.1°C of warming by 2023-24.

Gettelman et al. 2024

2023-24 El Niño

A strong El Niño arriving on top of long-term greenhouse warming, with the cut in shipping sulphur from the 2020 fuel rule adding a little more. Together they produced the record global temperatures of 2023 and 2024.

ONI +2.0°C · RONI +1.4°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker