Friendship Hill National Historic Site. NPS photo
The National Park Service's Eastern Rivers and Mountains Network tracks ecosystem "vital signs" in parks in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York — among them weather and climate. This is its summary of 2022 at Friendship Hill National Historic Site, using county-level data for Fayette County, Pennsylvania, from 1895 to 2022, courtesy of NOAA's Climate at a Glance program.
Weather or climate? Weather is the short-term state of the atmosphere — minutes to months, what's happening outside right now. Climate is what to expect from patterns over 30 years or more. Climate is what you expect, like a hot summer; weather is what you get, like a warm, rainy day.
2022 at a glance
| 2022 | Rank since 1895 | |
|---|---|---|
| Average temperature | 50.1 °F, 0.2 °F above the long-term average | 54th warmest |
| Total precipitation | 48.54 inches, 3.13 inches above average | 39th wettest |
Temperature
Eight months were warmer than normal, but a very cold January (−3.6 °F) and October (−3.4 °F) left the year close to average.
| Month | °F | vs average | Month | °F | vs average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 24.2 | −3.6 | July | 71.4 | +0.5 |
| February | 31.7 | +2.3 | August | 70.1 | +0.7 |
| March | 41.2 | +2.8 | September | 62.8 | −0.6 |
| April | 48.0 | −1.1 | October | 48.8 | −3.4 |
| May | 61.3 | +2.2 | November | 43.0 | +2.1 |
| June | 67.2 | +0.1 | December | 31.6 | +0.3 |
Departures are from the 1895–2021 averages.
Temperature rankings for 2022, by season and year (an arrow at the top would mark the warmest on record since 1895, at the bottom the coldest). Winter is January–March, spring April–June, summer July–September, autumn October–December. NPS
Precipitation
Most seasons were slightly wetter than usual.
| Month | Inches | vs average | Month | Inches | vs average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 4.07 | +0.57 | July | 4.85 | +0.11 |
| February | 4.97 | +2.00 | August | 4.99 | +0.82 |
| March | 2.37 | −1.54 | September | 3.83 | +0.32 |
| April | 4.26 | +0.35 | October | 2.64 | −0.46 |
| May | 5.58 | +1.26 | November | 4.07 | +0.94 |
| June | 3.84 | −0.88 | December | 3.07 | −0.36 |
Precipitation rankings for 2022, by season and year (top: wettest on record since 1895; bottom: driest). NPS
The long view
Since 1895, Fayette County's annual average temperature has risen about 0.04 °F per decade, and its annual precipitation about 0.34 inches per decade.
Park Service scientists project that by 2100 the park's annual average temperature will rise 3.1 to 9.2 °F (best to worst case) and annual precipitation 6% to 12% (Gonzalez and others, 2018).
Annual average temperature (°F) and precipitation (inches), Fayette County, Pennsylvania, 1895–2022; dashed lines show linear trends. NPS
Rapid climate change is challenging national parks as never before — shifting wildlife migrations, more destructive storms threatening cultural resources and facilities, disrupted habitat. Learn more at the NPS climate change site. Data: NOAA's nClimDiv dataset (version v1.0.0-20230106).
Sources
Based on "2022 Weather in Review: Friendship Hill National Historic Site," Eastern Rivers and Mountains Network, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The brief also calls the park a "National Historical Site"; it is a National Historic Site.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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