Spring 2026 Outlook

After a topsy turvy winter and early spring, what can we expect for the all-important spring weather?  Before we do that, let’s look back and see how well the winter outlooks verified. 

We’ll start with temperatures. Here’s how the December-February period compared with normal winters. Incredibly mild throughout the West and the Plains states, with many states recording their warmest winter in 131 years. Washington had its 4th warmest winter on record. Meanwhile, the cold winter weather was located in the East. 



Did the folks at the Climate Prediction Center see this pattern coming back in October?  Here’s their winter temperature outlook.  Not very close to what actually happened. 



What about the blended computer outlook?  Again, doesn’t resemble what really happened. 



Ok, so the temperature outlooks were a bust. How about the precipitation outlook?  Here’s what the winter precipitation looked like.  The West received average precipitation, while east of the Rockies the precipitation was below normal. In some cases it was nearly the driest on record.  (You may note that some states were very warm and very dry, like Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas). 




The Climate Prediction Center also didn’t see this precipitation pattern in their October outlook. 






And the computer outlook?  Also not close to reality. 



I went through all those images to demonstrate that these seasonal outlooks aren’t always right. One of my staff a few years ago did this same process for a number of winters. He found that the Climate Prediction Centers winter outlook was slightly better than a coin flip. 

So, with that, let’s look at the expectations for this spring. First, here’s CPC’s outlook for April. 


That looks pretty warm. But it’s worth noting that this outlook was made at the same exact time when much of the Southwest was cooking in an early season heatwave. Yes, that shouldn’t matter, but might have played a role. 

And for April rainfall?  Very confident of dry weather in the West, but near normal in the extreme  Northwest. I won’t bore you with more graphics, but this outlook looks a lot like the European computer forecast for the first full week of April. 



The three month Apr-Jun period isn’t much different. 







Warm and dry in the West, including the Northwest. The computer forecasts are also warm, but they have precipitation closer to normal. 

We do have some chilly weather in store for next week as the calendar turns to April.  
  • A Sunday cold front will bring rain mainly to the Panhandle. 
  • A stronger system will bring widespread precipitation on Wednesday, with showers for the remainder of the week. 
  • The atmosphere will be cold enough that non-impact snow showers are possible for the latter half of next week. 






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