(AP) — The second-warmest year on record in Northeast Pennsylvania would have passed with little fanfare in 2016 but for one scorching anomaly. Between late May and early September that year, the high temperature hit at least 90 degrees on 22 days, more than triple the area’s annual average of 6.3 such days.

It included an unusually rare stretch in late July when the high topped 90 on nine straight days, the first time that had happened since 1953. Just months later, on March 14-15, 2017, a blizzard pummeled the region with 23.6 inches of snow, the most ever from a single winter storm.

Now imagine a time when such aberrations are the norm, when weather events that now rate superlatives — largest, most, worst, first — become commonplace.

It’s closer than you think.

The Fourth National Climate Assessment, completed last month, reinforced what scientists have long known: Climate change is already making its mark on Pennsylvania, and the state — the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area included — faces a future that will be warmer, wetter and challenged by all that entails.

Extreme weather

“One thing is the extremes get more extreme with climate change,” said Pittsburgh native Brenda Ekwurzel, director of climate science for the Union of Concerned Scientists and a co-author of part of the NCA report.

“So whatever messy weather you don’t like in Pennsylvania, you’re going to get more of that, and it’s going to be more severe. That’s kind of the bottom line with climate change.”

It will slice across nearly every aspect of life in northeast Pennsylvania:

• Summer temperatures will continue to rise, with heat waves becoming more frequent and intense. Under the worst-case scenario, the average number of days with temperatures over 90 degrees could rise to more than 40 by the middle of the century, with ramifications for everything from human health to dairy production.

• Winter recreation will take a hit as the warmer, wetter conditions lead to a truncated snow season. Even with advances in snow-making technology, ski resorts may find it difficult to stay viable. Snowmobiling could vanish.

• On the agricultural front, a longer summer growing season will present opportunities, but other factors, including changes in rainfall patterns and more intense heat, could require producers to rethink the crops they grow. Hotter summer temperatures especially could pose problems for dairy and poultry farmers.

• Changing conditions will disrupt existing ecosystems. The optimal habitat for some important tree species will shift to higher elevations and latitudes. Many bird, wildlife and fish species may see their habitats shrink. Invasive species could flourish.

• Not only will more precipitation fall as rain, heavy rain events will become frequent. That will mean a greater flood potential in a region with aging infrastructure, from river levees to storm sewers, that may be inadequate to handle more extreme precipitation.

Health issues

Michael Cummings feels the tickle in his throat and knows. He’s in trouble.

The 37-year-old Taylor man has suffered with asthma since he was a child. A dry, scratchy throat typically is the first sign that his seasonal allergies are kicking in, which, combined with his asthma, will soon turn him into a “walking medicine cabinet,” he said.

This past summer, with its extreme heat and excessive rain, produced more airborne irritants that made his life particularly miserable.

He dreads reading reports that predict climate change will lead to even hotter and wetter weather in Pennsylvania in the ensuing decades.

“The humidity is what gets me. When the air is heavy, it’s like breathing through a coffee straw,” he said. “It’s getting worse all the time and it’s never going to get better unless global warming is addressed.”

Since the start of the 20th century, the mean temperature in Pennsylvania has increased by more than 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit and is projected to be as much as 5.4 degrees warmer by the middle of the century, according to a 2015 study by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

The annual precipitation rate also increased by 10 percent over the past 100 years and is expected to increase another 8 percent by midcentury, the report said.

That spells trouble for residents’ health, particularly the elderly and people with respiratory problems like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said Dr. Terry Lenahan, a pulmonologist with Delta Medix in Scranton, and Dr. Tina George, an Avoca physician with Commonwealth Health System.

“Oppressive heat makes people with normal lungs feel sluggish,” Lenahan said. “Can you imagine if you have impaired lungs? It takes it to the next level for those patients.”

Lenahan and George said they treated significantly more people with respiratory problems this past summer and their ailments lasted for a longer period of time.

“People read about climate change and the see a degree or two change,” George said. “That does not seem like a lot, but for the elderly … who are more sensitive to heat, those small degrees of change in temperature can make a big difference.”

Ticks and mosquitoes

Health officials are equally concerned increasingly hot and humid weather will result in a higher concentration of deer ticks infected with Lyme disease and mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus.

Northeast Pennsylvania already has a high incidence rate of Lyme disease. In 2010, there were a total of 152 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wyoming, Pike and Wayne counties, according to the state Department of Health.

That figure skyrocketed to 612 in 2017.

Part of the hike is attributed to more accurate tracking and reporting. Changes in the region’s weather also contributed to the spike, said Erica Smithwick, professor of geography and director of the Ecology Institute at Penn State University.

“In general we have had milder winters and warmer summers,” Smithwick said.

“We used to get a hard freeze that would kill ticks over the winter. Now they are able to survive through winter into the next season.”

The changing climate also will impact mosquitoes, which flourish in hot, steamy weather. That increases the likelihood that more of the bloodsucking insects will be infected with West Nile virus that can be transmitted to humans.

The virus was detected in mosquitoes in all but 10 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties in 2018, according to the state’s West Nile virus Control Program. There were a total of 88 cases of West Nile neuroinvasive disease in Pennsylvania and 1,542 cases in the nation as of Dec. 11 this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

By 2090 it is projected the number of cases of West Nile neuroinvasive disease in the Northeastern United States will increase by 490 per year, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment report.