For the first time in years, California is not beset by a drought. The primary areas in which drought is ongoing this year are further inland. It’s pretty dry nearly everywhere EXCEPT California, which makes for an interesting change of pace.

In the winter, that means that snow is in a deficit. The way to build that snow pack back up is A) through precipitation, and B) through temperatures remaining cold enough for the snow to generate. For one part of the country, at least, there appear to be the correct ingredients, and it may slake the thirst, at least for a corner of the country. Lets look at the CPC outlooks for both temperature and precipitation.

It looks to me like nearly everyone that expects snow this time of year is going to be in for a healthy dose through March. In particular, the northern Rockies will get to combine below normal temperatures and above normal moisture. Montana ski season is on, baby!

Also of note is the bullseye of above normal precipitation for Indiana. This region is one of the driest in the country right now, and a good drink through spring will do wonders. This part of the world is also cold enough to see snow in the winter, and with the forecast for near normal temperatures, they could certainly see some of this precipitation as a healthy dump of snow.

If you are one of the people that likes snow, then you probably do live in this snow zone, which means the forecast is good news. The snow is coming, just hold on.

We made it a full week before we had a severe weather day here in the US, but our luck has run out. An area of low pressure moving through the Plains started generating severe weather, with a smattering of severe thunderstorm reports and a couple tornados in Oklahoma, including one that hit a farm in Purcell.

You’ll also note several severe storm reports in Illinois on Thursday. These were associated with the tail of a cold front tied to a deep area of low pressure moving earlier today through Labrador. The tail of that front also led to several wind storm reports today south of Rochester, New York.

The real show is in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Low pressure dissipated after yesterday’s storms, but reconstituted over southern Arkansas late in the day. This redeveloped area is tapping into quite a bit of moisture, but also quite a bit of instability, and even now, there are tornado warnings and a tornado watch for northern Louisiana and southern Mississippi. These storms are rolling through overnight, which makes it a particularly treacherous scenario.

Fortunately, the system is moving quickly, which will allow it to occlude very quickly, and sap energy from the system. There is going to be a little bit of a carry over into tomorrow, particularly in the morning in areas like central Alabama, but the threat, fortunately, is going to be short lived. With a pattern as active and fast moving as it is, don’t be surprised for more quick hitter storms like this over the next couple of weeks.

We made it, at long last, to the end of 2025, and are hopeful for a 2026 that is safe and contributes wisdom and collaboration to our lives and discourse. One thing that will be added here, is in the verifications, the grade will no longer be a range, but will be based on a consensus – basically the average – forecast, and how it compares to what verifies.

2025 was an eventful year in America, from fires in California at the beginning of the year to the first EF5 tornado in a decade, ocurring in Enderlin, North Dakota, and on to this winter, where attention returned again to the Golden State, as snow and rain before Christmas led to impassable roads and severe flooding. We checked in with a few forecasts every month, but who was the top forecaster of the month?

The Weather Channel had a tremendous year, beginning to end. Often times when writing these recaps, plugging in the verification data and reviewing things month to month, there is a bit of intrigue as to who will be the top spot. Not this year! The Weather Channel was the most frequent forecast champion, sure, but not in a runaway. They were, however, always consistently near the top, and rarely had clunkers. As a result, they are easily the 2025 Forecaster of the Year.

Outlet	Forecast Wins (year)
The Weather Channel	11.41
National Weather Service	9.41
Accuweather	8.83
Clime	7.75
Victoria-Weather	5.66
Weatherbug	4.5
WeatherNation	4.41

Generally, when we have mentioned Omega blocks in the past, we have referenced them as the cause of heat waves and exasperating wind and fires in the southwest during the summer months. This winter has offered it’s own blocking pattern, and while it has been unusually warm over the Christmas Holiday, it has also brought about quite a bit of something else.

Precipitation. While the ridge in the middle of this block, like a Ω shape, the Greek letter Omega, gets a lot of attention, the winter has been all about the troughs on the west and east of the main feature. We discussed the rain that hammered Redding in our recent verification, but rain and snow has smothered California, with flooding and deadly consequences from San Francisco to San Diego. All of this was after the deadly flash flooding up around Redding.

The rain was heavy, certainly, but what really brought about the problems was the persistence of the pattern. The blocking ridge in the center of the country ensured that the seasonally omnipresent low in the Gulf of Alaska was able to funnel moisture to a low off the California coast, which made for a much wetter stretch than even California’s rainy season is accustomed to.

It isn’t all bad, of course. Anyone in tune with the economics of California knows that the snow in the Sierras is often the only moisture that the Valley will get through the summer months, supplying crops and thirsty residents. A large snowpack, while terribly inconvenient right now, will be a boon for regional agriculture this summer.

On the other coast, the trough has been a good environment for the development of low pressure in the Gulf Stream. This has enhanced some clippers moving out of the Canadian Prairies, as well as more localized development, both features contributed to the travel hassles along the coast over Christmas. The continued winter storm warnings for Lake effect snow in the Great Lakes are all ongoing because of a feature that has rotated and become embedded over Hudson Bay.

For the foreseeable future, this is the outlook. The Plains and particularly the Front Range will remain quite warm. As with most Omega features, even ones in the winter, the West Coast will remain above normal as well, given flow moving down from the mountains when the low pressure off the coast ebbs. Throughout all of it, look for above normal moisture nearly nationwide to start the new year.

I think we have all been here long enough to see what outlets we expect to rate near the top of the heap in most months, and which are going to be a bit further down in the pecking order. The Weather Channel, the Weather Service and Accuweather (along with Victoria-Weather sometimes) are typically near the top, so it is a real underdog story when another outlet grabs the title. This is one of those months. Weatherbug was the top forecaster of the month, despite having had the toughest go of it for the first 10 months of the year.

Outlet	Forecast Wins (year)
The Weather Channel	9.41
National Weather Service	9.41
Accuweather	7.83
Clime	5.75
Victoria-Weather	5.66
Weatherbug	4.5
WeatherNation	4.41

We are arriving in one of the busiest travel seasons of the year, as millions of Americans will travel over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house. The great news is that most of the winter weather that is forthcoming is steering clear of the major airports. A shortwave will be pulling out of the southern Plains and headed for the mid-Atlantic by Tuesday afternoon but this will bring primarily rain and maybe a low cloud deck, both problems for flight operations.

But rain and clouds aren’t a disaster, as the clouds and visibility won’t be as low as they would be with a snowstorm. Any weather delays are likely just going to be secondary to the volume and other issues that arrive at airports. It will be slow in some important areas because of the rain, but not a disaster by any stretch of the imagination. I’m talking about New York, Philadelphia and Washington, reaching parts of coastal New England on Wednesday. By Thanksgiving, it will be clear and crisp up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

Fortunately, the threat for snow isn’t going to be a problem for most of the country, especially air travelers. Unless, of course, you are going to northern Minnesota. The occluded portion of the feature that will be responsible for the rain out east is also responsible for winter weather alerts from Montana to the UP of Michigan. The heaviest stripe of snow will be in Northern Minnesota, and should be wrapped up by midday on Wednesdsay.

This isn’t a ton of snow, and the roads that it impacts aren’t well travelled. There won’t be volume issues in Bismarck or Duluth or Rhinelander, some airports that will see some of this snow. Lake effect snow will become a problem on Thanksgiving, so Cleveland and Buffalo are going to be tricky for day-of traveling, and perhaps returning home on Friday as well.

We are through the month of October, and admittedly halfway through the month of November. Most of the weather headlines were from outside of the country, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t weather domestically as well. The National Weather Service ended up winning the month, and this somewhat busy month led to a very close contest. This is good news for us all! Good forecasts for everyone!

Outlet	Forecast Wins (year)
The Weather Channel	9.41
National Weather Service	9.41
Accuweather	6.83
Victoria-Weather	5.16
Clime	4.75
WeatherNation	3.41
Weatherbug	3

2:50PM: See how the clouds are kind of ribbed throughout New England? Well, that means it is quite windy across the region, at the level at which the clouds lie. I can tell you it is fairly breezy at the surface, as well.

9:10PM: The wind that was evident in the image above is also responsible for bringing in quite a bit of chilly air. There are actually frost advisories tonight as far south as North Carolina.

You may not remember this, because of the way the month ended, but it was a pretty cool month, running afoul of global trends for, I don’t know, a century, now? Standing in those headwinds, our forecasters needed to be particularly sure of what they were putting out there. Accuweather and Clime won co-shares of September’s title.

Outlet	Forecast Wins (year)
The Weather Channel	9.08
National Weather Service	6.91
Accuweather	6.5
Clime	4.75
Victoria-Weather	3.83
Weatherbug	3
WeatherNation	2.91

Autumn is working its way into town tomorrow, according to astronomers (it’s been here since the 1st, according to meteorologists) and this time of year I’m either talking mostly about the tropics or about transitional systems bringing big storms or big changes to the Plains. This year, I’ve not had the need for either. For one thing, it’s been colder than normal to begin the month, so a fall like transition isn’t as notable. For another, the Atlantic is serving all of the tropical features (for now) to the north Atlantic.

With all of the various debates over the state of the climate and sea surface temperatures, the fact that the storms are churning in the Atlantic instead of the Caribbean shouldn’t quiet any of them. Another explanation is that storms are forming further east because of the warmth, and able to veer north early on in the life cycle because of the environment for storms to do so, caused by a warmer climate/sea surface.

Don’t misunderstand this as a good thing. The Caribbean and Gulf are still plenty warm, and conducive spots most of the late summer for tropical storms. It hasn’t happened yet because of prevailing flows and upper level factors. Really, the only debate we are avoiding with the dynamics of this tropical season is the one that forces on air meteorologists to decide on the namesake of the Gulf.

We are in the second half of the tropical season, and with only one storm in the month of September, things have gone our way, whatever the cause is. After many bad seasons in a row in the tropics, we were owed an easy one.