The National Park Service’s Mid-Atlantic Inventory and Monitoring Network tracks “vital signs” of ecosystem health in its parks, and weather and climate is one of them. This review of 2023 at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site uses county-level data from NOAA’s Climate at a Glance program, averaged over Berks and Chester counties, Pennsylvania, with records going back to 1895.
Weather is what the atmosphere is doing over minutes to months — a rainy afternoon or a warm, sunny day. Climate is the pattern you expect from 30 years or more of records. Climate is what you expect, like a hot summer; weather is what you get, like a warm, rainy day.
The year in brief
2023 was extremely warm but close to normal in precipitation: the 5th-warmest and 42nd-wettest year since 1895.
Temperature
Every season but spring was warmer than average, and nine months ran above normal. The winter months stood out, with December, January and February each at least 7°F above their long-term averages.
NPS / J. Holzer.
| Month | Average (°F) | vs. 1895–2022 average (°F) |
|---|---|---|
| January | 39.4 | +10.8 |
| February | 38.8 | +8.6 |
| March | 41.5 | +2.3 |
| April | 55.1 | +5.2 |
| May | 59.0 | −1.6 |
| June | 67.2 | −2.0 |
| July | 75.8 | +1.9 |
| August | 72.5 | +0.6 |
| September | 66.6 | +1.6 |
| October | 56.8 | +3.2 |
| November | 41.8 | −0.8 |
| December | 39.7 | +7.2 |
| Year | 54.5 | +3.0 |
2023’s annual and seasonal temperature rankings for the park’s counties. Winter = Jan–Mar, spring = Apr–June, summer = July–Sept, autumn = Oct–Dec. Image from NPS’s page.
Precipitation
47.8 inches fell in 2023, 2.46 inches above average — but it arrived unevenly from season to season.
| Month | Total (in.) | vs. 1895–2022 average (in.) |
|---|---|---|
| January | 3.77 | +0.40 |
| February | 1.38 | −1.60 |
| March | 2.57 | −1.14 |
| April | 4.13 | +0.42 |
| May | 0.45 | −3.51 |
| June | 5.72 | +1.58 |
| July | 7.15 | +2.62 |
| August | 3.16 | −1.32 |
| September | 5.55 | +1.52 |
| October | 1.86 | −1.63 |
| November | 3.02 | −0.31 |
| December | 9.03 | +5.44 |
| Year | 47.80 | +2.46 |
The long view
Since 1895, the park’s counties have warmed by about 0.2°F per decade, and annual precipitation has risen by about 0.38 inches per decade.
Annual average temperature and total precipitation, 1895–2023; dashed lines show the linear trend. Image from NPS’s page.
Park Service scientists have also looked ahead. Models project that by 2100 the park’s annual average temperature will rise by 3.1°F to 9.0°F, from the best-case to the worst-case scenario, and annual precipitation by 7% to 14% (Gonzalez et al., 2018). Rapid climate change is already testing national parks: shifting wildlife migrations, more destructive storms that threaten historic resources and facilities, and disrupted habitat.
Sources
Based on "2023 Weather in Review: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site," Mid-Atlantic Inventory and Monitoring Network, National Park Service, using NOAA’s NClimDiv data; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Pictures an earlier version of this page left out were restored on 2026-09-26.
In these publicationsHopewell Furnace National Historic Site
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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