Source: NC CLIMATE OFFICE, 1/12/21


The unprecedented aspects of 2020 included our climate in North Carolina, which the statistics show was an extreme year in our modern history.

According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, 2020 was our 2nd-wettest year on record and tied for our 3rd-warmest year on record dating back to 1895. That makes 2020 the only time in the past 126 years with both our annual temperatures and precipitation ranked in the top five.

Perhaps more unusual than the rankings themselves is the story of how we got there: a persistent warm and wet pattern that was defined not by a single event, but by the sum of its parts:

Abundant moisture from an active tropical Atlantic. Amid a record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season with 30 named storms, only one storm -- Isaias in early August -- directly made landfall in North Carolina. However, the remnants of at least 8 other systems moved through our state, beginning with Arthur and Bertha in May and continuing through the fall with storms like Sally, Delta, and Zeta that originally made landfall along the Gulf coast.

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