From drought to snow to tornadoes, and everything in between, we know we can see all types of weather in Central Indiana.
Let's take a look back at our weather through 2024.
Indianapolis picked up around the normal amount of rain. In a normal year, we should see around 43.63" of rain.
Numbers don't tell the whole story though, as we had both periods of plentiful rain and drought.
"The last few years have been really rough for gardeners," said John Chapin.
Chapin is a retired elementary school teacher turned landscaper and gardener. He owns Tree Frog Gardens in Danville.
"For over a decade, we've had these mini dry spells. This year it was all the way from late July into October," he said.
During this time, he just kept encouraging everyone to water their plants. He hopes this trend of dry spells will not continue.
"Plants may be able to adapt, but it's sure stressful for gardeners," he laughed.
Chapin says all the water we had in the spring was helpful to get plants growing and make up for drought from previous years.
When we ended 2023, over 97% of the state was in drought. As we end 2024, about 55% of Indiana is in drought, so the number has improved.
The snowfall from 2024 didn't help much with drought, as we only saw 12.3" for the entire year. A normal year should see about 25.5" of snow.
What else happened this year? It was an impactful storm year. There were 57 tornadoes across the state. This is the second-highest number of tornadoes to occur in Indiana.
According to NOAA, these tornadoes caused $37 million in property damage and $43,000 in crop damage.
Some crops were also damaged this year by gusty winds from the storm remnants of Hurricane Helene, which passed through Indiana in September.
The warmest temperature of 2024 was 96 degrees on August 30, while the coolest was -6 degrees on January 15.
We had 22 different 90-degree days in 2024. In a typical year, we would expect to see 19 or 20 days with 90-degree heat.
And perhaps the most unique weather event of 2024, which will go down in history, we can't forget the solar eclipse that happened on April 8. You can watch a full recap of our eclipse coverage here.
