‘Surprise’ 2024 marks the hottest recorded year ever in Birmingham

ByPat Byington
LAST UPDATED01/13/25

Reviewed by: Michael Seale

Reading time: 4 minutes

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map — (NOAA/NCEI)

Planet Earth, the United States and Birmingham, Alabama, all experienced their warmest year on record in 2024.

According to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Birmingham tied 2016 as its warmest year since they started taking temperatures in The Magic City in 1930.

Hottest records broken throughout Alabama

map — The bars on the graph shows global temperatures compared to the 20th-century average each year from 2024 (right) back to 1976 (left) — the last year the world was cooler than average. Based on data from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. (NOAA Climate.gov, using NOAA NCEI data)

2024 was also a hot year in the rest of Alabama.

Huntsville experienced its hottest year on record surpassing the previous record by 0.5ºF.

Mobile notched its second warmest year ever in 2024. The Port City actually set the record for their hottest year in 2023.

In total, 2024 was the third warmest in Alabama.

2024 warmest on record in U.S.

map — A world map plotted with color blocks depicting percentiles of global average land and ocean temperatures for the full year 2024. Color blocks depict increasing warmth, from dark blue (record-coldest area) to dark red (record-warmest area) and spanning areas in between that were “much cooler than average” through “much warmer than average.” (NOAA/NCEI)

The news about Alabama’s record annual temps come on the heels of a report Friday, released by NOAA scientists declaring 2024 the warmest on record for the United States and the globe.

NOAA stated in its January 10, 2025 news release, the average annual temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 55.5 degrees F — 3.5 degrees above the 20th-century average — ranking as the nation’s warmest year in NOAA’s 130-year climate record.

Seventeen states — Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin — had their warmest year on record.

Annual precipitation across the contiguous U.S. totaled 31.58 inches (1.66 inches above average), which placed 2024 in the wettest third of the climate record.

Record hottest temps a global wake-up call

map — A world map plotted with color blocks depicting percentiles of global average land and ocean temperatures for the full year 2024. Color blocks depict increasing warmth, from dark blue (record-coldest area) to dark red (record-warmest area) and spanning areas in between that were “much cooler than average” through “much warmer than average.” (NOAA/NCEI)

In a statement released by renowned UAB polar scientist Dr. Jim McClintock to Bham Now, the latest news about record temps in Alabama, the U.S. and the earth are a wake-up call.

“According to an eye-catching NOAA news release today, we just set another record in 2024 for the warmest year ever recorded by humankind on planet earth. The pattern is undeniable: NOAA has reported the ten warmest years since 1850 all occurred in the last decade.

I’m not a climate scientist but as a polar biologist who for decades has studied the ecological impacts of global climate change, I’ve been overwhelmed by the changes in populations of wildlife I’ve witnessed in Antarctica and increasingly in my home-state of 38-years, Alabama.”

James McClintock, Emeritus University Professor of Polar and Marine Biology

McClintock also noted that according to NOAA, 2024 was the second lowest record for Antarctic sea ice, the lowest occurring in 2023.

“This is not good news for the once abundant Adelie penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula who are dependent on sea ice as habitat to survive.”

Below is a video and graphic on the global 2024 temperature findings posted by NOAA and NASA.

Bottomline: The 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred in the past decade.

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Pat Byington

Longtime conservationist. Former Executive Director at the Alabama Environmental Council and Wild South. Publisher of the Bama Environmental News for more than 18 years. Career highlights include playing an active role in the creation of Alabama's Forever Wild program, Little River Canyon National Preserve, Dugger Mountain Wilderness, preservation of special places throughout the East through the Wilderness Society and the strengthening (making more stringent) the state of Alabama's cancer risk and mercury standards.