04/19/2026
New Wisconsin climate report turns up the heat
by Tom Sinclair
The Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI) has released its latest assessment of climate change in our state. While much of the content confirms what we already know, some of it is sobering.
For example, research shows that the decade from 2010 to 2019 featured the state’s most extreme weather since records began in the 1890s, and the 2020s have been Wisconsin’s warmest decade so far.
These trends are expected to persist, with greater variability between wet and dry periods, triple the number of extremely hot days and warm nights, and more intense storms.
WICCI scientists now project that from 2041 to 2060, Wisconsin will experience an average of 26 days a year of 90 degrees or more. That’s up from just nine days annually between 1991 and 2020. Dane County, they say, could average 35.
Led by UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, WICCI is a collaboration of more than 200 scientists, practitioners, and residents representing more than 50 national, state, and local agencies, tribal nations, non-profit organizations, universities, and private sector partners.
The new report builds on a 2021 assessment, highlighting how the state’s climate continues to change and the impacts on everything from public health and safety to natural resources and ecosystems to people’s livelihoods.
“Warming trends are impacting Wisconsin’s $25.8 billion recreation industry in every region of the state,” according to a summary accompanying the report. “Crop production faces complex challenges and financial risk from new pests and diseases. Warmer winters are shrinking the harvest season in Wisconsin forests, straining the forest products industry needed to keep forests resilient.”
The report also offers advice “to help Wisconsin residents, communities, businesses, and industries understand and be ready for the impacts of Wisconsin’s changing climate,” according to DNR secretary Karen Hyun.
“Most importantly, this report provides hope and guidance,” says Steve Vavrus, a WICCI co-director and the state climatologist. “WICCI plays a unique role by focusing directly on the solutions that keep Wisconsin’s economy strong and our communities safe. That is critical as we see extreme weather becoming more common and expensive.”
