A cold snap the last two days of the month kept El Paso from setting a new monthly heat record for October, but average temperatures throughout the month were 5 degrees above normal.

Four straight months of record or near-record heat make it increasingly likely that 2023 will end as El Paso’s hottest year on record.

El Paso temperatures averaged 70.8 degrees throughout October, which made it the second warmest October on record behind 71.3 degrees in 2016. The normal for October, based on temperatures from 1991 to 2020, is 65.1 degrees.

July was the hottest month ever recorded in El Paso, and the average September temperature was the warmest ever for that month. The average temperature in August was the third highest on record.

Through the first 10 months of the year, El Paso’s average temperature has been 72.2 degrees – well above the normal 67.8 for that period.

If November and December temperatures are just average – and El Paso temperatures have been well above average since March – 2023 will surpass 2017 as the Sun City’s warmest year on record.

Six of El Paso’s 10 warmest years have occurred since 2016, the result of climate change and urban heat island impacts that are rapidly warming the city.

El Paso’s average annual temperature since 2000 is almost 3 degrees warmer than in the 20th century.