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In terms of weather, this year was a fairly unusual one for the Valley. After getting a fairly average 2.76 inches of rain during the summer monsoon season, the Phoenix metro was doused throughout late September and October, making it this autumn the wettest one in the Valley’s recorded history, according to the National Weather Service.
It was a welcome relief after 2023 and 2024 — two years that both charted among the five hottest years in Phoenix history — though the fall mosquito explosion was less than ideal.
While this summer’s rain and the fall’s major storms played a role in lowering the temperature from those scorching highs of recent memory, the data show that this year has still been historically warm.
Through Dec. 10, the average temperature in Phoenix for 2025 is 77.7 degrees. If the year ended today — hypothetically — that would make 2025 the second-hottest year in Phoenix history.
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While the year isn’t quite over, we can make an educated guess on where 2025 might ultimately end up in the rankings.
If you were to fill out December 2025 with the average December temperature from 1991 to 2020 — 55.8 degrees — the average temp for 2025 would be about 74.03 degrees, well below the hottest years in history. If you were to use the 59.2-degree average from the first 10 days of December, you’d get an annual average of 77.7 degrees.
The 10 hottest years in Phoenix history
So how does that incomplete average of 77.7 degrees compare to the hottest years in Phoenix’s recorded history? If that mark were to hold, 2025 would rank second.
That’d make sense, given recent trends. While 8 of the 10 coldest years in Phoenix history were from 1897 to 1919 — with 1964 and 1965 as the only exceptions — 9 out of 10 of the warmest ones have occurred since 2012.
Here’s the list:
10. 2018 – 76.4 degrees
With January, April and September all cracking the top five hottest respective months in Phoenix history, it wasn’t the deep summer of 2018 that was so hot as much as some of the more unexpected months.
9. 2012 – 76.7 degrees
It was consistently warm throughout the year. November was among the top five warmest Novembers in the Valley’s history.
8. 2015 – 76.7 degrees
This summer had a hot June and August, and its February and March were among the warmest on record.
7. 2016 – 76.7 degrees
February, June and October were all respectively among the hottest such months in Phoenix during the year of Pokemon Go and the rise of Donald Trump.
6. 1989 – 76.9 degrees
There were a total of 143 days in 1989 when high temperatures reached triple digits. That year’s spring was particularly warm, with April still holding the record for warmest one in recorded history.
5. 2023 – 77.0 degrees
The summer of 2023 was downright hellish. July 2023 averaged 102.7 degrees, making it the first summer month to ever reach a triple-digit average. August was only a bit cooler at 98.8 degrees, the second-hottest one on record. An astonishing 645 people died from heat-related causes in Maricopa County that year, a record that blew the previous year’s numbers out of the water.
4. 2014 – 77.1 degrees
The year started off relatively warm in January and February, and while summer temperatures didn’t top records, they remained consistently sizzling.
3. 2020 – 77.2 degrees
July 2020 was the third-hottest on record and August was even hotter at 99.1 degrees — the warmest one ever in Phoenix. The year holds the record for most days with temperatures reaching triple digits at 145.
2. 2017 – 77.3 degrees
March and November were particularly warm, both placing in the top five for those months. The the summer months were consistently hot, with average temperatures between 94 and 95 degrees.
1. 2024 – 78.4 degrees
The year before was a brutal summer of record heat deaths in the Valley, but 2024 still upstaged it. June 2024 was by the far the hottest one in history, with an average of 97 degrees. There were 70 days last year with a high temperature topping 110 degrees, easily a record.
