The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: U.S. Average Temperature Forecast for Spring
Dear Diary. It will be the start of meteorological spring by March 1st, so once again as we do on this blog, it is time to make a forecast for the coming season. As forecast, Winter 2024/25 had above average temperatures, but was much colder than Winter 2023/24, which was the warmest on record for the lower 48 states.
At the very start of spring, it’s time for me to make another attempt at a forecast for average seasonal temperatures in the U.S. This forecast will be very broad and not specific for any one state comprising the continental United States (or lower 48 states).
So how did the forecast work out for Winter 2024/25? Here is a link to the post for that forecast:
By March 8th the National Center for Environmental Information will finish their climatological assessment for Winter 2024/25 so our verification is not complete as of February 28th. Let’s do fill in ranking numbers with 1 being the coldest and 131 warmest for a verification for months during 2025, which have already been assessed (130 would be warmest for 2024.):
Here are my two cents for a broad, rough forecast for the U.S. for Spring 2025, which I guarantee to be warner than this past winter, of course, as the amount of daylight increases across the Northern Hemisphere.
I like to look at spikes on graphs because they can tell us something. Last year we had a big warming spike for 2024, so it stands to reason that we will not see back-to-back warmest years on record unless our climate is truly way out of whack with global warming becoming exponential. Spring 2024 was the coolest of the seasons relative to average for 2024 but the warmest of the last ten years:
I would expect a slight downward tick on the above chart for Spring 2025, but the season should be well above long term trends.
Second, I like to look at water temperature anomalies surrounding North America just before the start of a season to get a sense of how much potential anomalous heat can be added to the atmosphere across the continent. Here is what we see:
Warm SST’s have encircled North America over the winter, but cooler than average waters have made an appearance around the Baja Peninsula. Mostly warmer than average conditions, particularly across the Gulf of Mexico, lead me to think that SST influence will be a positive factor for this coming season. Also, it appears that the current La Niña is waning, so ENSO won’t be much of a factor during spring.
We do note that the first half of the March will be warm in portions of the central U.S. while cold in the West:
March should be an above average month but not record warmest.
Here is the National Weather Service forecast for Spring 2025:
I can’t disagree much with this outlook, particularly because of warm Gulf waters.
Next, we can get another clue looking at prior National Center for Environmental Information ranking and temperature record count data. For this I like to drag out my “Record Scoreboard” (updated through 2/28/2025):
For these data sets all monthly ratios of > 10 to 1 DHMX to DLMN or > 10 to 1 DLMN to DHMX are in bold type. The rankings are for the lower 48 states with the warmest ranking since 1895 of average temperatures being 130 and 1 being the coldest as of 2024. Blue colors represent cold months and red warm. Those months and years with counts close to a 1 to 1 ratio of highs to lows are colored black. Boldly red-, blue-, or purple-colored months, such as January 2020 and October 2024, have ratios of >10 to 1 daily record highs to lows or <1 to 10 daily record highs to lows, and are either historically hot or cold, most of which have made news. All-time record hot or cold ranked months are highlighted in purple. I’ve subtracted Alaska records so we can better compare apples to apples with record totals and rankings for the lower 48 states.
Notice that 2025 has started out cold so we are “due” to have anomalous warm weather in the spring. Looking at daily record ratio trends by month, anomalous warmth should continue into the spring with a low probability that one month might see more daily min records than daily max records. We did see this in January 2025, and likely will have another for February 2025..
I’m predicting that all three months of Spring 2025 will be above average with March being the most likely month to see temperatures closer to average and April the warmest. Here is the link to avg. rankings per year for the lower 48 states since 1895:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/rankings
Not all seasons in the near future will see above average temperatures, but seasonal forecasters are beginning to “chuck it,” discounting colder than average scenarios due to carbon pollution.
Here are all seasons ranked for the last decade:
The last time we had a below average fall season was before 2015. Fall 2024 was the warmest in recorded history for the lower 48 state portion of the U.S. An average ranking on the above chart would be 65.5 as of 2025. Starting in Fall 2023 every subsequent season has been or has been near record warmest on record. Will Spring 2025 buck this trend? I think so.
Here is my bottom-line forecast for Spring 2025:
“I think that Spring 2025 will be ranked above average. I’m going to forecast that the Spring 2025 ranking will be around 100 + or – 10, with near average confidence given all of the factors written within this post.“
My forecast for Fall 2024 of a ranking of 110 + or – 10 was 20 rankings too cool, but not too bad considering that the upper end of my forecast was 120, and the verification was a top ranking of 130.
We will see how well my forecast ranking of near 90 for Winter 2024/25 worked out in a few days.
As of 2024 the top ranking for any month or season would be 130 since climatological rankings for the United States started in the year 1895. Carbon pollution is definitely making below average seasons rarer. As stated, I’m going to guess that Spring 2025 gets ranked at 100 + or – 10, and with near average confidence given all of the factors in this post.
Have a fantastic spring, but be weather aware that models are indicating a much stormier than average weather pattern during March for the Plains and South. Let’s hope that there won’t be too many life-threatening tornadic storms.
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Friday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)