El Paso experienced its hottest year on record in 2024, as average temperatures were nearly 4 degrees warmer than normal and topped the previous record-setting heat the city saw in 2023.
The average temperature in El Paso in 2024 was 69.9 degrees, which is 3.7 degrees above the city’s “normal” – or the 30-year average temperatures that the city experienced between 1991 and 2020, according to the National Weather Service. That topped the previous record-high annual average temperature of 69.2 degrees set in 2023.
El Paso has seen an unprecedented period of hotter-than-normal weather over the last two years, culminating this year in the third-warmest December ever in El Paso – behind only December 2021 and December 1889. The average daily high temperature in December 2024 has been 65.5 degrees, which is 7.7 degrees above the typical daily highs for this time of year.
“It’s certainly unusual to see two straight years being so warm,” Zak Aronson, a forecaster in the National Weather Service’s Santa Teresa office, told El Paso Matters. “With these past two years being the two hottest, it’s pretty concerning to see where we’re headed in the next decade.”
In 2024, El Paso experienced both the warmest June and hottest October on record going back to 1887, according to the NWS. And Aronson said El Paso in 2024 saw its hottest fall – from August through October – on record.
The increase in average temperatures here hasn’t been a two-year outlier. Since 2016, El Paso has recorded seven out of the 10 hottest years in the city’s history. And El Paso has seen average temperatures increase throughout every decade since the 1980s.
And as days have become warmer, nighttime temperatures haven’t gotten as low in recent years as they did in the past.
Part of the increase in temperatures in El Paso is attributable to urban development and more concrete and asphalt capturing the sun’s rays, Aaronson said. That’s also known as the urban heat island effect, in which asphalt-laden neighborhoods with minimal tree cover experience hotter temperatures than shadier areas with more vegetation.
“We have seen some of the effects of man-made climate change and urbanization, as well, of the El Paso area. There is more concrete and buildings that have gone up in recent years around the airport, so that skews things a little bit,” Aronson said. “But yeah, there is definitely an overall trend of seeing warmer years and hotter temperatures.”
The rapid warming El Paso has experienced goes beyond local urbanization.
The United States and the entire world are experiencing hotter days on average. From January through November 2024, average temperatures throughout the United States were 3.3 degrees above the historical average, and 2024 was expected to be the hottest on record for the entire country.
Warmer days, higher electric bills
Going forward, the rising temperatures El Paso is seeing likely will translate to higher electric bills for households across the Borderland.
El Paso Electric last week asked Texas utility regulators to let the utility build a new $328 million solar farm and battery array in far Northeast El Paso. If the Public Utility Commission of Texas allows EPE to build it, the facility would boost household bills by $2.54 per month on average, likely beginning in 2027.
And by the end of this decade, EPE is planning to add five new solar fields and battery clusters.
The main reason EPE says it needs to spend heavily to develop new sources of electricity is because hotter summer temperatures are leading El Pasoans to run air conditioning units and use more electricity than in the past to stay cool. Amid searing temperatures in July 2023, record-high power usage in El Paso far exceeded EPE’s expectations and almost drove the region’s electric grid to the brink.
That event – when the utility’s CEO said EPE operators were “holding our breath, crossing our fingers” that the utility would be able to keep customers’ lights and AC units on – prompted EPE to seek out new power sources over the previous year. If it doesn’t add more generation, EPE said it could be short on electricity needed to power the region as demand rises.
“Continued warming trends have resulted in above average temperatures in the summer months,” EPE said in regulatory filings submitted Dec. 27.
If EPE had not solicited bids for new power generation sources, the utility “would face an approximate 255 (megawatt) shortfall in 2027 and be at risk for a significant capacity deficiency,” the utility told regulators.
One megawatt is enough to power a few hundred homes.
Rainfall in El Paso
It was also a dry year in El Paso in 2024, although far from the driest, after the city received about 4.7 inches of rainfall – 4 inches less than the historical norm. That makes 2024 the 12th-driest year on record in El Paso, according to the NWS.
Over 2023 and 2024, however, the city has seen a total of only 9 inches of rain, making it the driest two-year stretch for El Paso since the mid-1930s.
But while the trend of rising temperatures over time is clear, there isn’t much of a long-term trend showing increasing or decreasing precipitation in El Paso over time, Aronson said.
“It is a bit concerning that we’ve had two years in a row with below normal rainfall,” he said. But lack of rainfall here over the last two years may be tied to the La Niña weather pattern that can result in drier winters in El Paso, Aaronson said.
“I don’t think that’s a long-term trend or anything,” he said of the two-year spell of low precipitation in El Paso.
Going forward, El Paso may be in store for more typical winter weather in January, when average temps are usually 46.5 degrees. An intense cold front of arctic air is set to hit the eastern United States in the coming weeks, and El Paso may feel that.
“It does look like we will see some of those effects. Probably not the coldest air like we’ll see further east, but definitely closer to normal beginning early next week,” Aronson said, adding there’s only a slim chance of rain or snow in the weeks ahead. “Nothing brutally cold in the single digits or anything.”
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