Think of it as the meteorological version of the Billboard Top 100.
Breaking daily or monthly temperature or rainfall records is common throughout the year, but we went back and found some of the more unusual weather records set this year, along with which towns had the “smash hits” of 2022 – as in obliterating their previous weather records.
Most of the largest record breakers came during extreme weather, as you might expect.
The massive floods in July and Hurricane Ian left an indelible mark on rainfall records in the areas impacted by those events.
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St. Louis set an all-time daily rainfall record of 8.64 inches on July 26, which was not only the No. 1 entry of beating a daily rainfall record among the nation’s larger cities – breaking their previous daily record by 7.77 inches – but also smashed their all-time record by 3.05 inches, ranking No. 1 in that regard as well.
The following two entries came from Hurricane Ian when it hit Florida in late September. Orlando’s Sanford Airport and Daytona Beach broke previous daily records by well over 5 inches.
The blizzard that hit New England on Jan. 29 reset snowfall records across the region, with Islip, New York, getting 23.5 inches of snow, besting its daily record of 1.5 inches – a record smash of better than 1,500%.
Boston also broke its daily record by more than 20 inches, getting 23.6 inches on Jan. 29, whereas before 2022, the most snowfall recorded on the date was 3.1 inches.
If you tried to guess ahead of time which larger city smashed their daily record high temperature by the widest margin in 2022, I’d think you could have had 10 guesses and not come up with the answer: Seattle.
A blistering mid-autumn heatwave rewrote the record books across the Northwest, but Seattle took the top prize with a sweltering 88-degree high temperature – on Oct. 16. The previous record high was 72, and the 16-degree difference leads the way. A couple of fun facts: It’s the second year in a row Seattle broke a daily high by such a margin. Last year, Seattle reached 108 degrees on June 28, besting the previous daily high (91 degrees) by 17 degrees. This autumn, after Seattle hit 88, four days later, it was in the 50s, and Seattle has not reached 60 degrees since.
Monterey, California, smashed its record high a few days later with a 91-degree reading on Oct. 19, breaking its previous record by 15 degrees.
What about low temperatures? The biggest record dips were in the Inland Northwest.
Butte, Montana, dropped to negative 6 degrees on April 13 – yes, weeks into spring – breaking its previous record low for the day of 10 degrees.
Casper, Wyoming, matched the drop in March when on the 10th, the temperature dropped to negative 25 degrees, breaking the old record of negative 9 degrees.
Wondering which areas set the most weather records?
Marathon, Florida, spent many a day in 2022 editing its record books, tying or breaking 47 daily high-temperature records – that’s more than 1 in 10 days this year.
On the flip side, Burns, Oregon, set or tied 15 low-temperature records.
For rainfall, three cities had ten dates with new rainfall records: Atlantic City, New Jersey; International Falls, Minnesota and Jackson, Kentucky.
Marquette, Michigan, led the way with new snowfall records with eight.
Aside from traditional high and low-temperature records, plenty of other rare and exciting weather events occurred throughout the year as proof that Mother Nature strives to keep us on our toes.