Virginia 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

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 Virginia 15.8 heatwave days, its 2nd-highest of the 1950-2025 record, though it ranks only 14th-warmest by annual mean - a summer event, not a warm year.

Northeast Regional Climate Center, LIFE

The 1962-66 Northeast drought

1965 was Virginia's driest year in this site's 1950-2025 record - 831 mm, 24% below its 1961-90 average. It was not one dry year but five: 1962-66 as a whole averaged 10% below that baseline. This is the south-western edge of a drought centred on New England and the Mid-Atlantic.

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

Hurricane Camille

Two days after its Mississippi landfall, Camille's remnants stalled against the Blue Ridge over Nelson County on 19-20 August 1969 and dropped somewhere between 27 and 46 inches of rain in six to eight hours - still among the most extreme short-duration rainfall totals ever documented in the United States. Flash floods and landslides killed 113 people in Virginia, almost as many as the hurricane itself killed on the coast.

NWS Mobile, Mississippi Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Virginia

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, Virginia averaged +1.16°C warmer across 2006-2025 than across the two decades before the Act, 1951-1970, the 19th-largest rise of the 49 states measured and above their median of +1.09°C. Cleaning the air was right for human health. It also uncovered warming that was already there.

US EPA

Hurricane Agnes

Agnes brought severe flooding to Virginia in June 1972, with Richmond and the James River basin among the worst affected. It arrived less than three years after Camille's remnants had devastated Nelson County, and the two storms together reshaped Virginia's flood planning.

USGS

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.

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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 Virginia's winter rainfall - it is not one of the seven states where ENSO reliably moves it. In 1982-83 Virginia's winter rainfall ran -10% against the 1961-90 average, with temperatures +1.4°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 Virginia's 7th-warmest year in this site's 1950-2025 record, and 1991 its 11th-warmest. 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 Virginia's own record: 1993, two years after the June 1991 eruption, was an unremarkable year there, 36th-coldest of 76. A single large eruption can hold temperatures down for two or three years; it cannot reverse the trend.

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Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flips to a warm phase

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flipped to a warm phase in 1995, and for the Southeast that has meant a more active hurricane season: the warm phase since includes Florence and Michael in 2018 and Helene in 2024. It is a natural cycle of roughly 60-70 years, so it shifts the baseline rather than driving the long-term trend.

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1997-98 El Niño

In 1997-98 Virginia's winter rainfall ran +67% against the 1961-90 average, with temperatures +2.8°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.

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The 1999-2002 Eastern drought

2001 was Virginia's 3rd-driest year on record here - 886 mm, 19% below its 1961-90 average. It was not one dry year: 2001 and 2002 together averaged 10% below that baseline. Virginia's drought ran from 1999 to 2002 and is its worst in the modern record; a drought emergency was declared in the summer of 2002.

USGS New England Water Science Center, Vermont State Climate Office, NOAA Drought.gov

The wet year of 2003

2003 was Virginia's 2nd-wettest year in this site's 1950-2025 record - +44% against its 1961-90 average. It is one of three exceptionally wet years the Mid-Atlantic has had this century, alongside 2018 and 2020.

NOAA NCEI

Start of the sustained rise in US heatwave frequency

Virginia's own Heatwave Days (WSDI) count rose from a 1961-90 average of 4.4 days a year to 7.3 in 2016-25 - a clear rise, though more moderate than the 2.4x averaged across the 50 states.

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

2012: the warmest year on record for the contiguous US

2012 is Virginia's 2nd-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

7 of Virginia's ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2013, and 8 of the ten since 2000, with 2024 the warmest of all.

NOAA Climate at a Glance

2015-16 El Niño

In 2015-16 Virginia's winter rainfall ran +37% against the 1961-90 average, with temperatures +2.9°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. Virginia's own record is a looser fit - seven of its eleven warmest fall in that span, with 2012, 1998, 1991 and 1990 outside it. Its warmest year is 2024.

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2018: the wettest year on record across the East

2018 was Virginia's wettest year in this site's 1950-2025 record - 1614 mm, 48% above its 1961-90 average and ahead of 2003 (1572 mm), the previous highest. Washington DC, just across the Potomac, reached 64.22 in and obliterated a calendar-year record that had stood since 1889.

NOAA NCEI, NOAA Climate.gov, NOAA NESDIS

The 2019 Southeast flash drought

2019 gave Virginia more heatwave days than any year in this site's 1950-2025 record (17.2), and its 3rd-warmest year. September 2019 was among the driest on record here. The year as a whole was not dry at all here - 59th-driest of 76, so in the wetter half of the record. A month of heat did the damage, and the annual total never shows it.

NOAA Climate.gov, NOAA NCEI, Wang et al. 2021

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