Dr. Greg Jones recently published an updated weather and climate summary and forecast. This report looks back at December and forecasts conditions for January, February, and March.
Summary:
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A warmer than average* December across the western US, with the Basin and Rockies seeing the warmest conditions during the month. For 2025, the entire country was warmer than average, likely a top 5 warmest year on record.
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The December precipitation forecast was mostly a bust, especially in the PNW and California, where atmospheric rivers and late-month storms brought most regions significantly above average rainfall with substantial impacts from flooding.
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Drought conditions in the west have improved for all except the Southwest; however, warm conditions for the winter have left snowpacks below normal for most areas, while reservoirs are mostly full. As such, we remain in a ‘snow drought’ across nearly all mountain basins in the western US except for the central to southern Sierra Nevada mountains. There is still time to make up for snow deficits, but the window is shrinking daily.
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Precipitation for much of the west during the first week or so of January, temperatures dropping over the next few days will lower snow levels some.
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Heading into mid-month, milder and drier conditions are likely over most of the west. Overall, the first month of the year will likely end up near average to warmer than average for temperatures and near average to below average for precipitation.
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So far, the winter has not followed what would be expected from La Niña and negative PDO, not sure why, but the seasonal forecasts are still holding to this influence and are tilting the odds to a cooler and wetter second half of winter from northern California into the PNW, and cool to near average and dry into southern California.
*Note that unless stated otherwise, all references to normal or averages in this report are to the 1991-2020 climate normal for each weather/climate parameter. See this website for more information on climate normals.
View the report (PDF) on the Abacela website.
