The Hottest Halloweens on Record in the U.S.
Halloween is about 3,000 years old, which makes it much older than Christmas, Easter, or almost any other holiday people can name. According to History Channel, “The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts.” The tradition survived the Roman conquest of the Celts. In the early centuries of Christianity, popes added All Martyrs’ Day and, eventually, All Souls’ Day to the religious calendar. The name “Halloween” is a “direct derivation of All Saints Day,” and “All Hallows” in Old English means “the feast of the saints.”
Many of these oldest traditions have been lost in the American celebration of Halloween. It retains its roots only in its name and in the fact that it is a day of festivities. Carving pumpkins evolved from the earlier practice of carving large vegetables. A celebration of the dead eventually became a celebration of ghosts, a core part of modern “trick-or-treating.”
Commercial interests seized on the holiday more than half a century ago. CBS News reports, “Americans are on track to spend a record $13.5 billion on Halloween this year amid rising costs associated with the national scarefest, according to the National Retail Federation.”
The holiday has also become the foundation of one of the most commercially successful movie series ever. The horror film Halloween debuted on October 27, 1978, and there have since been 13 “Halloween” movies. IMDb describes the first: “Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, to kill again.” The franchise has sold $884 million in tickets.
The weather
If the NOAA Weather Prediction Center is correct, Halloween will be rainy in the center of the country. Daytime temperatures will be in the 60s across much of the northern tier of states and in the high 70s across much of the southern tier. Even in Phoenix, the hottest major city in the US, it will be only 75.
We were able to find Halloween temperature data going back to 1951, the first year for which data for the day was available. Through 2025, the average Halloween temperature for the contiguous US was 48.4°F. Temperatures are the area-averaged daily mean.
Global warming does not appear to have played a major role in Halloween temperatures. Five of the ten hottest Halloweens occurred in 1990 or earlier, including 1964 and 1974. Only one year from the 2020s makes the list: 2024, in ninth place.
Data is from NOAA and The National Weather Service.
Hottest Halloweens
| # | Year | Avg temp | High | Low | vs. normal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2016 | 56.5°F | 67.5°F | 45.4°F | +8.0° |
| 2 | 1990 | 54.6°F | 69.2°F | 39.9°F | +6.1° |
| 3 | 1987 | 54.5°F | 66.8°F | 42.2°F | +6.1° |
| 4 | 1999 | 54.0°F | 67.7°F | 40.4°F | +5.6° |
| 5 | 1974 | 53.9°F | 62.1°F | 45.7°F | +5.4° |
| 6 | 2008 | 52.9°F | 68.1°F | 37.7°F | +4.5° |
| 7 | 2001 | 52.9°F | 64.3°F | 41.5°F | +4.4° |
| 8 | 1983 | 52.8°F | 64.0°F | 41.5°F | +4.3° |
| 9 | 2024 | 52.6°F | 63.7°F | 41.5°F | +4.2° |
| 10 | 1964 | 52.5°F | 65.1°F | 39.8°F | +4.0° |
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