Extreme weather grabbed the headlines in 2023
Columbus and Central Ohio Weather
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Extreme weather conditions grabbed most of the headlines in 2023.
The calendar year marks the warmest year on record globally, and the summer months were the hottest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
NASA reported that June-August was the warmest in more than a century of data in the Northern Hemisphere.
Marine temperatures reached record warmth for the second year in a row, averaging 4 to 7 degrees above normal off the Florida coast, causing damage to coral reefs.
In the American Southwest, Phoenix had 31 straight days of 110-degree heat; El Paso, Texas, reached or topped 100 degrees for a record 44 days in a row, and New Orleans hit 105, surpassing the 1980 record (102 degrees).
Across the world, Europe and Asia also baked in historic heat, and deadly flooding swept areas bordering the Mediterranean Sea, including Spain, Greece and Libya, and in Pakistan.
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The Atlantic Ocean also provided its fair share of tropical cyclones (20). Hurricane Idalia slammed the coastal Big Bend region of Florida. Storm surge measured between 7 and 12 feet and winds topped 125 miles per hour on Aug. 30, the strongest storm to make landfall in that area since 1896.
The deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century hit the island of Maui, killing more than 100 people.
Canada also experienced its worst wildfire season in history, with more than 45 million acres scorched. Plumes of smoke from those fires reached the Midwest and East Coast in early June, clouding the air and bringing the worst air quality on record, as skies turned an eerie orange.
Closer to home, Ohio experienced 56 tornadoes in 2023, the highest number in the state since 1992. Five tornadoes touched down at the end of February and four more on March 3, and 60 to 70 miles per hour wind gusts caused numerous power outages.
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Just weeks later, 14 tornadoes touched down on March 31 and April 1 during an outbreak of more than 120 tornadoes in the Midwest and South.
A week earlier, 17 people were killed by a violent EF4 tornado that traveled 17 miles on the night of March 24, one of 40 tornadoes reported over a three-day span through the 26th.
On Aug. 12, viewers in Hardin, Marion and Athens counties provided video confirmation of five tornadoes. A dozen storms touched down later in the month on Aug. 24 in northern Ohio with a thunderstorm complex diving southeast from Lower Michigan. Central Ohio received several inches of rain overnight. In all, 18 tornadoes in August set a state record.
Halloween brought central Ohio’s first snowflakes of the season, with light to moderate accumulations in the northeast Ohio snowbelt on November 1.
Snowflakes were few and far between the rest of the year (0.4 inch), in the fourth warmest December on record in Columbus (41.9 degrees), 7.4 degrees above normal.
Almost as an afterthought, rain turned to wet snow on New Year’s Eve, with a light accumulation on grassy surfaces before dawn on New Year’s Day.
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