2026’s historic snow drought is bad news for the West

For much of the western US, winter 2026 was the year snow never came.

See full article...

 

[Snark218]

Those fearing a civil war might be blindsided by the water wars.

The saddest thing is that for the most part this can be preventable with responsible management and planning, but those are diametrically opposed to maximizing profit, so why manage river flows when you can sell aquifer rights to middle eastern companies to grow alfalfa?

If you haven't read The Water Knife, it's the best and most memorable book I've ever been made existentally anxious by.

 

[spopepro]

The article missed a couple of points that add some context to what we are seeing:

As it noted, the weather in Washington and Oregon has been wet enough, just not cold enough. Those wet conditions travel up the Columbia/snake River valleys to the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area were it is high enough that it will almost always turn into snow. That is why the snow pack is at normal levels for those basins.

The snow pack is important because it functions like a temporary reservoir that keeps the man-made reservoirs full for a few months after the rains stop. That means if you just get wet winter weather, the reservoirs need to release water to keep the lake levels low enough so that they can provide flood control and that means later in the summer, the levels are a lot lower than required.

Partially correct. The snow water content that has fallen is slightly below median (75% in CA to date). But the snow pack is now below 30% of median. When I was in Montana in early March they were saying similar things—no snow, higher water content.

But it is still much below median everywhere in the west. You can see CA historical data here. It’s worth noting in CA we still aren’t as bad as we were in 2015.

 

[Hilarius]

My family recently got back from our annual ski trip to the Rockies. This is a live view from one of the cameras from where we were. This place is usually open until the end of April, and snow into May isn't unheard of. We've been going for 15 years now, and this year was by far the worst we've seen.

 

[SteveBigandTall]

Meanwhile, the UK has had some of its wettest winter months on record.

(And no, you cannot come and live with us just because you voted in a dictator and don't like the consequences)

You folks have a King.

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

My family recently got back from our annual ski trip to the Rockies. This is a live view from one of the cameras from where we were. This place is usually open until the end of April, and snow into May isn't unheard of. We've been going for 15 years now, and this year was by far the worst we've seen.


View attachment 131478

In the '70s I knew a family that would go skiing on the Fourth of July at Schweitzer in Idaho, using two Jeeps to substitute for the chairlifts that were closed for the summer. I wonder when the last year that was possible was.

 

[ConfusedBystander]

The Dear Leader is using the Presidential Weather Console to fight the violent radical-left lunatics in Utah, Nevada, and Eastern Oregon.

 

[Sassysaurus]

Born and raised from Phoenix, AZ, living in OH. I look forward to hearing about the impending Water Wars in the near future. Municipalities are heavily reliant on the Colorado / Salt River for drinking water. City of Phoenix has already implemented Toilet-to-Tap waste water treatment, but only the impoverished areas of the city receive that water while the upper class neighborhoods still get their drinking water from the SRP canal.

 

[tRexx]

Don't worry, the Trump administration assures everyone that global warming is a liberal hoax. Ski on that! /s

 

[SteveBigandTall]

snow pack in Colorado wouldn't be a concern to Arizona if the US hadn't......decided that cities needed to be built in the desert. Las Vegas should not exist.

 

[pualo]

I guess they only have data for 1991 and later. They are comparing 2025-2026 snow coverage to a median value between 1991 to 2020. Global warming probably started in the 1970s. So a median value between 1991 to 2020 might already be lower than it was 50 years or 100 years.

They have older data too, although the maximum age varies by location. They do an official "30 year normal" every 10 years, covering the previous 30 years, and make that their main baseline. You can also look at the same data using averages for the whole period of record for each site. The map is highly customizable here (I worked on this software):

https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/...ativeDate=-1&lat=40.415&lon=-110.018&zoom=5.0

 

[macr0t0r]

Short answer is yes. I know of at least of research group based out of the University of Calgary that has been studying basically alpine hydrogeology in the eastern Rocky Mountains (which is also having a bit of a snow drought and an unseasonably warm winter).

In a nutshell, snow melt recharges local aquifers in high alpine basins that are primarily made of talus and rock blocks that erode from the nearby mountains. Ice that forms in these aquifers provide a somewhat steady supply to these alpine streams throughout the year until things freeze up. Recharge in these talus aquifers tends to be more rapid than aquifers with finer grained material.

Other research indicates larger flow systems through fractured bedrock such as near faults and bedding planes. These are regional systems that take a bit of water from the smaller and more local aquifers and transports them outside of the original watershed. These alpine and regional aquifers help support headwaters for many of the major river systems that municipalities and residents rely on for water supply.

Of course these water supplies are finite. If all the subsurface ice melts, then you don’t get a water supply throughout the year and is no different than having no snow. At best it buys time for more permanent and sustainable solutions. More fundamentally there needs to be an increased emphasis on water conservation and recycling.

The trouble is that whoever suggests it will face significant political blowback since no one really wants to change their lifestyles to adapt to upcoming climate realities.

Thanks for the background. It takes a lot of energy to pump water up from the depths without pumping something down in return. I wonder how extra-deep ground water would play out energy-wise compared to desalinization? Of course, then there is the issue of the pollutive brine on the shoreline.

Yahhhh....we really need to make a point of just reducing use and recycling what we have. We just need to get people to understand that reprocessed city water is actually cleaner than the "fresh" spring water full of fish, algae, and bear pee.

 

[Snark218]

snow pack in Colorado wouldn't be a concern to Arizona if the US hadn't......decided that cities needed to be built in the desert. Las Vegas should not exist.

Is this intended to be a constructive comment?

 

[jezra]

Chiming in from the western slope of the Sierra, near Tahoe National Forest.

We currently have full reservoirs but only 65% of historic snow levels, and the snow is supposed to represent 30+% of surface water storage.

There were snow storms, but those were followed by high temps and some warm rain that melted a lot of the snow. Currently the above average temps are increasing the snow melt. It has been so warm in the past few weeks, that Drowning in the River season has started a few months early.

When I was a youth in the 80s (late 1900s if you will) we would go hiking on donner summit to play in the remains of the snow in July/August. Those times are long gone.

Normal should be lots of snow on the summit this time of year. Unfortunately, normal now is exactly what climate models have predicted, fewer but more powerful storms, and snow that melts all too soon.

The water and warm temps have resulted in quite a lot of growth of ladder fuels that will be tinder dry in a few months. It is going to be a busy season for Calfire

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

They have older data too, although the maximum age varies by location. They do an official "30 year normal" every 10 years, covering the previous 30 years, and make that their main baseline. You can also look at the same data using averages for the whole period of record for each site. The map is highly customizable here (I worked on this software):

https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/...ativeDate=-1&lat=40.415&lon=-110.018&zoom=5.0

Thank you for your service. How does it work that the basin conditions where I am are coded for 50%-69% but almost all the stations are <50%? Can one station at 110%-129% really make that much difference for the entire basin?

 

[AverageDutchGuy]

But remember kids, anthropogenic global warming or climate change or whatever is a MYTH! Keep burning that oil and consuming power for your whotsits and buying your thneeds!

(/s I hope obviously)

 

[SteveBigandTall]

Is this intended to be a constructive comment?

yes.
stop supporting cities in the desert

 

[SirOmega]

snow pack in Colorado wouldn't be a concern to Arizona if the US hadn't......decided that cities needed to be built in the desert. Las Vegas should not exist.

You don't know your history of the west.

Las Vegas existed for a long time. It was a stop on the railroad from SLC to LA and SoCal. It grew very slowly, for a long time, and well within its water budget, until the 80s and 90s when gambling took off. Its not like the government just decided that they wanted to put 2.5M people in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere (one of the things that sucks about living in Vegas and Phoenix its that it is 5+ hours to get to any other city of significant size).

Growth beget growth, and people wanted to live in places like Vegas and Phoenix because it was cheap, warm, and no snow to shovel. And in both cases, a lot of jobs as well as the cities continued to grow. Vegas specifically is becoming expensive due to turning into a very distant LA suburb, so it has become less attractive in that respect (house prices way up, gas prices way up, etc.).

You can live here responsibly. But the issue is that people don't. Put solar on your roof, don't put water intensive things like grass or other non-native vegetation in your yard or in your cities unless its common use (parks, swimming pools, etc.).

 

[mem_dixy]

I know some people in Utah who are really proud of their lush green yard. They say they need it so the kids have somewhere to play.

But then the city puts up billboards advising people to shower less so they can save on water. Really? Watering a lawn takes up so much more water then a quick shower ever will.

There really needs to be a culture shift there. Start landscaping the houses like they do in Arizona. But it won’t happen, because they think they can just pray the problem away.

 

[thelongdarkteatimeof]

You folks have a King.

So do you, what's your point?






(We also have universal healthcare, drug price control, a real social safety net, better standard of living, better education, a better democracy, well, better everything really. I'd pick socialism every single day, and every day after that.)

 

[denemo]

This is happening at the same time that we are moving into an El Niño (possibly a Super El Niño) at the later part of the year which might not affect the summer of 2026 that much but probably will make summer 2027 intense.

Also a reminder that for every degree C the climate warms the atmosphere can hold 7% more moisture. Which means that more precipitation can fall at any one time but also that areas can dry out even more because the atmosphere is sucking up the moisture.

On top of that, we (globally) are releasing more CO2 each year compared to the last. CO2 on top of that stays in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. So for every unit of CO2 we are releasing we are compounding the problem.

Even "funnier" is that the day we finally decide to be serious about it and actually cut our CO2-emissions to zero (or net-zero if you will) the climate will still change for the worse for another 10 - 30 years due to inertia.

So not only do we have to reach net-zero, we will have to reach substantial net-negative emissions to try and mitigate the worst effects.

So yeah...this has been your happy news-bulletin.

 

[chanman819]

The temperature hasn’t been that out wack in the Pacific Northwest, though where I’m at we didn’t get any snow this year. What’s been really strange is the rain. Long periods of drought followed by repetitive atmospheric rivers overwhelming our systems. That’s not how the rain is supposed to fall here.

It's at least a little unusual. https://globalnews.ca/news/11737489/vancouver-no-snow-winter/

I remember only one day of snow a couple weeks ago (further inland, slightly higher elevation), but it all melted by the evening.

 

[Program_024]

Thanks for the background. It takes a lot of energy to pump water up from the depths without pumping something down in return. I wonder how extra-deep ground water would play out energy-wise compared to desalinization? Of course, then there is the issue of the pollutive brine on the shoreline.

Well, as you say, the higher you need to lift the water, the more energy needed which means that you need bigger pumps which translate into larger well bores and that’s not going into the fact that new wells can be expensive and the expense only increases the deeper you drill.

The real kicker though is that you can only drill so deep before you get to groundwater that isn’t potable. In alpine watersheds this doesn’t seem to be a problem because groundwater is shallow and pretty young (i.e. fresh). The longer the water sits underground and the farther it travels underground, the more ‘stuff’ it picks up like all sorts of dissolved materials and gases. That’s sometimes called Formation Water or even Produced Water which comes up with oil during oil and gas pumping. It’s pretty much desalination brine with some slight radioactivity thrown in for good measure. So there’s a limited supply of fresh groundwater that is economically feasible to treat.

But that’s not the only thing though. At some point a given water well could be deep enough and pump enough water that it pulls the formation water up towards the pump. There could be a fracture in a confining layer or even the well screened at the top of a larger aquifer that has a connection to some subsurface reservoir of formation water. The actual depth of course depends on the characteristics of a given aquifer.

Moral of the story is that you can only drill so deep for groundwater.

 

[pualo]

Thank you for your service. How does it work that the basin conditions where I am are coded for 50%-69% but almost all the stations are <50%? Can one station at 110%-129% really make that much difference for the entire basin?

Switching to a continuous color scale might make it more clear. Also, you can click on a basin and get a list of all the numbers for the stations that were used for it.

https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/...ativeDate=-1&lat=44.618&lon=-117.656&zoom=5.1

 

[jgee43]

But they said climate change wasn't real!

The problem with reality is that if you keep ignoring it long enough it will hit you like a truck. And then it'll be much more expensive to fix stuff.

I live in a suburb of Salt Lake City. Not many years ago ( 7 or 8?), the snow in my yard was deep enough that the little rage monster Chihuahua that lived in our home wouldn't go outside unless I cleared a path for him, and once in that path we couldn't see him from the back window because of the depth of the snow around that cleared path.

Now, I haven't even fired up my snow blower in 2 winters, and the one time there was enough snow to consider actually needing to clear the sidewalk, I did it with my leaf blower.

I'm worried.

More than that, I'm deeply frustrated by some of my neighbors and their "climate change isn't real things are always changing it's a scam we don't need to worry about the Great Salt Lake" etc. How do I be a kind and neighborly person and yet be able to point out that we really are hurting for water?

The hardest part for me living in Idaho, knowing climate change is a factor, but it's likely not the only factor--and most people simply don't have the patience for nuanced discussions about something that feels "abstract".

For example, I grew up farming in an area where our water rights were very junior--so we were among the last priority when it came to water. In a typical year, we would have irrigation water from about May (depending on when things deiced enough to let water down) until usually a week or two after the 4th of July. Our typical crops were barley and alfalfa as well as some fallow pasture. In 1992, we had a grand total of 1 water day.

As you can imagine, it's hard to water a farm on one day of irrigation. Everything dried out. (Alfalfa is perennial, and it all died. We didn't plant barley that year knowing water was going to be tight.)

Then, in 1996 and 1997, we had, in consecutive years, the wettest year on record in Idaho (1996) and among the top 5 highest snowpack years on record (1997). Instead of arguments between farmers trying to steal water, farmers were actively trying to give their water to someone else because there was so much that it flooded. (There were also massive mudslides all over the state.)

The reality is, climate is really hard. We make it harder by dumping a bunch of pollutants and greenhouse gases that disrupt the systems our models are based on. For example: Was this extremely wacky winter mostly climate change? Mostly ENSO? Neither and it was just a weird year? I know it's popular just to declare every extreme weather event a byproduct of climate change, but that's not the likely answer either.

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

So do you, what's your point?






(We also have universal healthcare, drug price control, a real social safety net, better standard of living, better education, a better democracy, well, better everything really. I'd pick socialism every single day, and every day after that.)

I'd also point out that while I find the idea of retaining hereditary monarchy (or nobility of any sort) ridiculous, at least your King is limited to being the Head of State while our President is both the Head of State and the Head of Government, which is frankly just as ridiculous and proving to be more dangerous in the modern world.

 

[terrydactyl]

This is the view from Mineral King in Sequoia NP. That mountain range should be deep in snow this time of year.

https://mkwebcam.com/

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

Switching to a continuous color scale might make it more clear. Also, you can click on a basin and get a list of all the numbers for the stations that were used for it.

https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/...ativeDate=-1&lat=44.618&lon=-117.656&zoom=5.1

Basically the stations closest to me are at ~20% but one two mountain ranges over is above 100%. I get how that will affect the basin as an average, but the watershed I'm in is severely fucked. My well is 200' deep and I'm wondering if we'll be having to ration by the end of summer.

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

The hardest part for me living in Idaho, knowing climate change is a factor, but it's likely not the only factor--and most people simply don't have the patience for nuanced discussions about something that feels "abstract".

For example, I grew up farming in an area where our water rights were very junior--so we were among the last priority when it came to water. In a typical year, we would have irrigation water from about May (depending on when things deiced enough to let water down) until usually a week or two after the 4th of July. Our typical crops were barley and alfalfa as well as some fallow pasture. In 1992, we had a grand total of 1 water day.

As you can imagine, it's hard to water a farm on one day of irrigation. Everything dried out. (Alfalfa is perennial, and it all died. We didn't plant barley that year knowing water was going to be tight.)

Then, in 1996 and 1997, we had, in consecutive years, the wettest year on record in Idaho (1996) and among the top 5 highest snowpack years on record (1997). Instead of arguments between farmers trying to steal water, farmers were actively trying to give their water to someone else because there was so much that it flooded. (There were also massive mudslides all over the state.)

The reality is, climate is really hard. We make it harder by dumping a bunch of pollutants and greenhouse gases that disrupt the systems our models are based on. For example: Was this extremely wacky winter mostly climate change? Mostly ENSO? Neither and it was just a weird year? I know it's popular just to declare every extreme weather event a byproduct of climate change, but that's not the likely answer either.

The simple fact — and I say this as someone who mostly grew up in and deeply loves the West while also forever feeling like a displaced Yankee — is that the West only exists as it does because it was subsidized by Eastern resource exploitation corporations. So much of our way of life has to do more with marketing by 19th Century land speculators than it does rational choices about resource management. There was never enough water here to support intensive European-style agriculture, much less large cities, but here we are.

Despite being on the edge of a high desert Spokane uses three times as much water as the national average because 150 years ago people were promised that all they had to do was pull water from the neverending supply of the aquifer and they could have lush green lawns just like they had wherever it was they came from before. And the first farmers out here (I'm side eye looking at my wife's family) got the same promise, then you interlopers showed up and wanted some of that water too. But there was never enough to fulfill the promise and when it got hard to manage the stresses those Eastern companies took their profits and went home.

Climate change is a huge problem, but it's exacerbating what was already a separate long crisis.

 

[jezra]

yes.
stop supporting cities in the desert

and stop supporting cities in flood plains, and in high-fire areas, and at sea level

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

and stop supporting cities in flood plains, and in high-fire areas, and at sea level

Can we just go ahead and throw in seismically active zones and areas that get tornadoes and hurricanes to make sure we've covered all the cities in the world?

ETA: And blizzards because we can't forget Buffalo.

 

[SittinPlushW/aRoyalFlush]

I had no idea it was this bad out west. Over here in the northeast we had our snowiest winter in years. Hoping this drought doesn't make for an exceptional fire season, but I won't hold my breath.

Yeah, it's nastier than the mind can fathom (as is the case with climate change in general). As others have pointed out: 90-degree days, very little snow, etc here in Colorado. At 5300' elevation, situated right up against the mountains, it's been getting wayyyy weirder in recent years. '24 & '25 each brought very wet snow in the 1st week of Feb., with a snow-to-water ratio of ~8:1, when temperatures were in the 20's. That should not be happening until maybe April or May. Typically the winter ratio should be ~15:1.

I've seen that ratio as high as 26:1. Yup, 0.62" of precipitation yielding 16" of snow.

At 10,000' elevation, my favorite snowshoeing spot has repeatedly had wet snow this year with ratios around 11:1 - in January and February! Typical for that locale is at least 16:1 and often 20:1 or higher. The snowpack is disappearing alarmingly early at this locale (and elsewhere) in the past few years.

In town, December 17 & 19 brought vicious windstorms with max gusts of 90mph. Nestled right up against the mountains, NCAR's rooftop anemometer measured 115mph gusts. The last time that happened was a mile further south, at the mouth of Eldorado Canyon on 12/30/21, when the Marshall Fire burned 1,000 structures. Fortunately, our December windstorms saw no fires, due in part to the power company preemptively shutting off the power so that downed power lines don't spark fires that wipe out towns - a lesson learned after '21. Power outages are far more frequent now.

Since the windstorms, Dec. & Jan. high temps were regularly 55-60F, with a few 48-72 hour Arctic blasts interspersed. Feb. high temps regularly crept up to 65-70F. March... well, 75F.... became 80F... became 90F. Bleh. March is historically the snowiest month in CO, due to March's still-winterlike temps combined with increasing moisture flowing in. But not this year.

Previous incremental climate change is just quantum leaps greater. A winterlong La Niña/HighPressureRidgeOverTheGreatBasin combo gave way to a massively-unprecedented, record-setting heat dome setting up just as the La Niña shifted to neutral.

The result: the earth's surface never cooled down here this winter. The summer sun & temps are gonna be brutal (and I lived in the desert Southwest for 15 years). I guess it's our version of Miami's sunny day flooding caused by rising sea levels. Don't even want to think about this upcoming wildfire season.

 

[stormcrash]

A winter of two extremes. The northeast has had snowfall like they haven't seen in a decade, while the west lacks the meaningful snowpack it needs to just sustain current state of drought issues and water depletion. Utility rates are going to suck especially if it turns out to be a hot summer where even the moderate regions are becoming more reliant on air conditioning due to ever more prevalent heat waves

 

[pnellesen]

The Dear Leader is using the Presidential Weather Console to fight the violent radical-left lunatics in Utah, Nevada, and Eastern Oregon.

That's the same one Biden used to deluge all the red states, as I recall... (/s, because in 2026, there are people who believe this dreck)

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

That's the same one Biden used to deluge all the red states, as I recall... (/s, because in 2026, there are people who believe this dreck)

The Resolute desk has a drawer that pulls out to provide access to two levers. One is labelled "Bad Weather for My Political Enemies" and the other "Gas Prices at the Local Pump." This is why it's important to always vote for Our Guy™ and not Their Guy™.

 

[squiggit]

The temperature hasn’t been that out wack in the Pacific Northwest

It has been in the part of Oregon I am. Multiple days that like 30 degrees above normal. 70 degree days in February,

I don't think we had a single day this season where it stayed under freezing all day, when historically we usually have a few weeks of freezing weather.

Agree that it's been really dry too. The mountains look like how they're supposed to look in May or June and we're not even out of March.

 

[Snark218]

The hardest part for me living in Idaho, knowing climate change is a factor, but it's likely not the only factor--and most people simply don't have the patience for nuanced discussions about something that feels "abstract".

For example, I grew up farming in an area where our water rights were very junior--so we were among the last priority when it came to water. In a typical year, we would have irrigation water from about May (depending on when things deiced enough to let water down) until usually a week or two after the 4th of July. Our typical crops were barley and alfalfa as well as some fallow pasture. In 1992, we had a grand total of 1 water day.

As you can imagine, it's hard to water a farm on one day of irrigation. Everything dried out. (Alfalfa is perennial, and it all died. We didn't plant barley that year knowing water was going to be tight.)

Then, in 1996 and 1997, we had, in consecutive years, the wettest year on record in Idaho (1996) and among the top 5 highest snowpack years on record (1997). Instead of arguments between farmers trying to steal water, farmers were actively trying to give their water to someone else because there was so much that it flooded. (There were also massive mudslides all over the state.)

The reality is, climate is really hard. We make it harder by dumping a bunch of pollutants and greenhouse gases that disrupt the systems our models are based on. For example: Was this extremely wacky winter mostly climate change? Mostly ENSO? Neither and it was just a weird year? I know it's popular just to declare every extreme weather event a byproduct of climate change, but that's not the likely answer either.

Winter this year in the West was freakishly hot and dry. Was that climate change? Yes. ENSO? Yes. Neither, just a weird year? Yes (but things happen for reasons). Resist the urge to ask for, or reduce this to, a single factor "likely answer." Of course a system that is responsive to multiple variables is going to exhibit changes in response to changes and periodicities in those variables, so there's never one "likely answer" that explains 100% of a climate event. Climate change is the cross-cutter, though - the threat multiplier that puts its thumb on the scale of whatever else is happening with the climate. If there's a cold year, it will be less cold, maybe not cold enough to arrest pine beetle. If there's a warm, dry year, it will be hotter and drier. If there's a drought, it will be worse. If there's a wet year, it will be less so, and less predictably so, and precipitation will fall in different places in different times. If there's a wildfire, it will be more intense, bigger, and spread faster.

 

[Snark218]

yes.
stop supporting cities in the desert

It wasn't. Fucking please get real.

 

[josephhansen]

There's lots of parts of this article not to enjoy, but one I haven't seen mentioned yet is the incredibly horrifying trendline on that Lake Powell graph. Even in the short term of the graph, it's sloping down to the right hard. I'm scared of what that graph looks like on a five year scale

 

[squiggit]

snow pack in Colorado wouldn't be a concern to Arizona if the US hadn't......decided that cities needed to be built in the desert

People always say this shit like Vegas wasn't settled for its water sources or Phoenix doesn't have a thousand plus year history as an agricultural hub.

They've grown too big to sustain themselves, but that's also most major metropoles by definition. There's a point to be made about water usage in arid environments but it turns out "why would anyone build a city here" has a real answer that you can easily look up and "we should dismantle this major population center entirely" isn't really a helpful sentiment.

 

[Fatesrider]

I had no idea it was this bad out west. Over here in the northeast we had our snowiest winter in years. Hoping this drought doesn't make for an exceptional fire season, but I won't hold my breath.

Down south in SoCal, it's like we started having an autumn, then stopped, and went to summer again. We had 80's most of the way through January, with a 90 or two sprinkled here or there. Santa Ana's were frequent (high pressure zones causing air to flow down mountains, gaining speed and friction to warm things up). We had a lot of rain at first, then that just stopped cold.

The typical winter day high is in the 50's to low 60's, with overnights down to the mid 20's. This year, 70's to 90's. It never once got below freezing at any point. The average highs have "shattered" all-time records, with San Francisco hitting 90 for the first time in March. That's "ever".

So it's been the year without an autumn, and without a winter.

Now, I've only been down here for 30 years (come November), and it's anecdotal, but this is absolutely the hottest it's ever been in winter that I've ever personally experienced anywhere in the country - stretching from the PNW to the south-east coast since the '60's.

It should also be noted that WRT climate change, the ten hottest years on record - ever - are the last ten years. Not exactly in order, but that's pretty damned telling of the speed at which climate change is happening. 2025 ranked 3rd hottest. 2026 is on track to take 1st so far.