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It’s gonna be a hot one this week! According to the National Weather Service, highs will be in the 90s this week—with a chance of triple digits by the week’s end.
If you’ve lived in Northern Nevada for a while, you know toasty weeks like this used to be less frequent. This was the subject of the RN&R‘s lead news story 13 years ago this week. Penned by Dennis Myers, the headline was: “What’s with this heat?”
Here’s the first section of the piece, from the July 11, 2013, issue:
“I know darn well that it’s hotter here than it was when we were kids.”
The comment came from one of a group of mostly Renoites at a party in Verdi last month. After that comment, there was a murmur of agreement from those surrounding the speaker, most of whom grew up in Reno in the 1950s and 1960s. The occasional days of three-digit temperatures Reno has been seeing in recent weeks likely reinforces that opinion.
But such comments in more diverse groups will often result in disagreement, sometimes from those who deny climate change is happening.
While there are fluctuations from year to year, there is indeed data that shows Reno has been getting steadily hotter since about the Second World War, though whether that fact says anything about the region’s climate is far from certain.
In the late 1940s and 1950s, there were only two years (1950 and 1958) when Reno’s average annual temperature was above 50 degrees.
But since 1980, there were only two years (1982 and 1985) when Reno’s average annual temperature was below 50 degrees.
On a flow chart, there are fluctuations, but also a steady upward rise over seven decades. So the data is there to show Reno is generally hotter now than it was. But data is always subject to interpretation. Is Reno hotter because the climate has changed at this point near the Sierra—or because Reno has become a larger urban area, what some people call an urban heat bubble? Such islands are caused by buildings preventing surface heat from dissipating into the night sky and a lack of evaporation and transpiration through plants, among other factors.
Western Regional Climate Center research climatologist Nina Oakley said, “There is also the urbanization, the effect of urbanization, an urban heat island in Reno. … How do you separate what’s happening in the atmosphere from what’s the effect of urban heat islands?”
In fact, she said, there are studies nearing completion to try to sort out which factor is having more impact on Reno, but that information won’t be available for a while. One of the frustrations of dealing with scientists is that they seldom provide unqualified, conclusive answers. Most of them will only go as far as the data takes them, and there is a surprising amount of information on Reno-area weather that is not in easily readable form or has not been analyzed to address some issues.
In the years since, this warming trend has continued. In fact, scientists say Reno is now the fastest-warming city in the U.S.—by a significant margin.
You may have seen some headlines in April regarding an annual analysis done by Climate Central, a nonprofit organization consisting of an “independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives.” That analysis, which you can read here, said Reno’s annual average temperature increased 7.9 degrees from 1970 to 2025. Las Vegas was a relatively distant No. 2 at 6 degrees.
Another study from Climate Central, released in May, included an even more stunning statistic. According to the “Summer Warming (1970-2025) Driven By Climate Change” report, average summer temps in Reno since 1970 have increased by a whopping 11.3 degrees, again the largest increase in the nation—and nearly double the second-largest increase of 6.3 degrees in Boise, Idaho.
That report noted that since 1970, average summer temperatures warmed in 236 of the 243 U.S. cities analyzed, with an average increase of 2.6 degrees. In other words, Reno’s increase is 4.3 times the national average.
Stay cool this week, my friends.
—Jimmy Boegle
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