Unfortunately, not much good news to share in our February state climate summary. According to NOAA data, it was the warmest February in 132 years of records. Mountain snowpack remains at the lowest level in over 40 years. Several locations set new monthly high temperature records for February. 1/4
Ah! Love this!
A new paper on the "stabilization wedge" idea was published in the journal Science today. The authors provide 36 wedge strategies that together can be mixed and matched into more than 6 trillion combinations able to limit global warming to 1.5°C. @bhensonweather.bsky.social has a detailed analysis:
A clear tornado debris signature southwest of Jet, OK. Not too far from the Vance AFB 88D.
#tornado last night near Bluff City, KS around 11:30pm #kswx
February 2026 is still on track to be the warmest February on record. 🔥🔥🔥
Sunrise shower #COwx
Is climate change responsible for increasingly frequent or severe cold events?
The evidence suggests it is not.
Instead, the impact of climate change is warmer winters and less severe cold events.
@hausfath.bsky.social has a great post on The Climate Brink talking about this.
Noah, it's like you're doing my job for me! Teaching freezing rain on Wednesday! Thanks! :)
This is the GFS at 06Z Sun, showing strong isentropic ascent (40 kt flow nearly perpendicular to the isobars) across NW MS, + a stout warm nose from 850-700 mb + a sub-freezing layer below ~900 mb indicating the likelihood for freezing rain at the sfc. A deeper sub-freezing layer would favor sleet.
It was 29° warmer at my house in Colorado than my parents' house in Wisconsin this morning. They reached -43° windchill, but mom says it's sunny and the wind has calmed a bit.
Denver Cyclone plus an evident convergence zone north and east of DIA this morning acting to locally enhance snowfall rates. Can also see the convergence via surface observations via the wind field.
Love that the inaugural podcast episode of The Air We Share, Friends of the National Center is MSU Denver alumna, Wendy Abshire! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t... #ncar
Statewide snowpack remains at its worst season-to-date levels on record. Some relief Friday/Saturday, but the reality is we need 3-4 big storms (1-2 footers each) just to get within sniffing distance of where we should be for this time of year.
#COwx
Among all the eye-popping numbers in the December summary linked below, it's also the first public appearance of this annual weather/climate visualization which I am quite fond of.
Larger version at climate.colostate.edu/co_cag/index... in case resolution here isn't so good. #cowx
Exceptional. Record-smashing. Disturbingly warm. December 2025 was one for the record books in Colorado.
🌡️ Warmest December
🌡️ >1000 daily high temperature records
🌡️ Warmest October thru December by far
🌡️ 4th-warmest year
Read more in our monthly summary: climate.colostate.edu/monthly_summ...
Interesting! Any similarities (e.g. La Niña)?
!!!
NOAA NCEI Just announced the US was in the bottom third of precipitation (ranked 40th driest out of 131 years).
But given the "regional" nature of precipitation, Here's daily departures (defined as % of 1991-2020 climatology) aggregated throughout 2025.
#StateOfClimate
Welp, it's officially Colorado's worst season-to-date snowpack on record. Just a smidge below 1990, 2000, 2013, 2018 levels.
Records only date to 1987, but still worst snowpack in ~40 years of data with little relief in sight = no bueno.
#COwx
Is damaging hail getting worse? An ESSL-led study published in Nature Geoscience finds that very large hail is modelled to occur most frequently in South America, the United States, and South Africa, but Europe shows the strongest increase in very large hail frequency. doi.org/10.1038/s415...
So excited for you on this next adventure!
There were 23 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the US in 2025.
And we only know this because @climatecentral.org hired the NOAA employee who led this vital tracking effort, which was decommissioned by the administration last spring.
For 2025, the Contiguous U.S. was about 1.5F above normal. Each of the last 10 months were above normal.
"Explaining the new album, Isakov said, "To me, the idea of a weatherman is really powerful. There's a guy on television or on the radio telling us the future, and nobody cares. It's this daily mundane miracle, and I think the songs I chose are about noticing the beauty in normal, everyday life.""
A comparison between recent satellite-derived sea ice observations and a reconstruction of ice extent since 1850 for the month of December. 2025 was a record low.
Data from @nsidc.bsky.social at doi.org/10.7265/jj4s...
My soil has turned to dust, so I broke out the hose yesterday and watered my trees/garden. Noticed alliums coming up, which usually happens in April. Trees have buds--- not good!
The first week of the new year is already flying by. Here's a look at how temperatures have changed around our planet over the last four decades in January...
Data from doi.org/10.24381/cds...
Looking forward to actually sleeping tonight after one of the most persistently howling night wind storms in memory at my current house. Shout out to the firefighters who put out both fires yesterday before this kicked into full gear, one just two miles directly to my west. #cowx
2025 goes down as the ~3rd-warmest year on record (based on ERA5).
Like in 2024, every single day this past year was warmer than the average of even the most recent reference period (1991-2020).
