Whether wet or dry, Mother Nature just couldn’t make up her mind in North Carolina last year.

While 2021 was not particularly extreme in the final temperature or precipitation rankings, it was notable for the drastic seasonal swings between wet and dry weather and their impacts, from devastating floods to fire-sparking droughts.

The Year By the Numbers

The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) reports a statewide average temperature last year of 60.1°F, which was 0.5°F warmer than the 1991 to 2020 average and ranks as our 16th-warmest year on record dating back to 1895.

A cool February and a seasonable start to summer kept us from rivaling the warmth of recent years, including our warmest year on record in 2019. However, 2021 was our seventh year in a row with above-normal temperatures, and 19 out of the past 21 years have been warmer than the historical average.

Locally, several observing sites recorded one of their top-ten warmest years on record. It was the 5th-warmest year in Wilmington, tied for the 9th-warmest in Charlotte, and the 10th-warmest at Hatteras.

For more of this story, click here.