U.S. Just Had Fourth Warmest Year On Record. Was Also A Busy Storm Year

Virtually all of the Lower 48 had a warmer than normal
year in 2025. Those little white spots were close to 
average. Overall, it was the fourth warmest year on record.

The United States had its fourth warmest year on record in 2025, and it was an active storm year, according to a year in review from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. 

The report from NCEI came out the same time as their global report for 2025. That report, as I posted about Thursday. indicated the the world had its third warmest year in 2025 and that the past three years have been by far the world's warmest on record. 

Per NCEI:

"Temperatures were above average nationwide, with the most pronounced warmth across the western third of the country. The Rockies and Westward region, stretching from the West Coast through the Rocky Mountains, recorded its warmest annual temperature on record."

The United States might have had its warmest year on record, or close to it, had we not experienced January, 2025 the way we did. It was the coldest since 1988.

But things quickly heated up from there, as NCEI explains.

"This was followed by the second-warmest spring on record, driven by widespread warmth across the Southeast, where Florida recorded its second warmest May. Summer heat included a late June heatwave affecting over 100 million people ad record warm July overnight temperatures across the Mid-Atlantic.

Anomalous warmth persisted into the latter half of the year, as meteorological fall ranked as the nation's third warmest. Following a November that saw five states set monthly records, nine states - Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming - recorded their warmest December on record." 

In the end, Nevada and Utah had their warmest year on record. Including those two states a dozen had one of their four warmest years on record. Here in Vermont, the state as a whole had its 18th warmest year. As always, the relative temperatures within the Green Mountain State varied. Burlington had its ninth warmest year. 

The United States as a whole had a drier than normal year. The lower 48 had an average of 29.19 inches of precipitation, which was 0.73 below average.

No state had an extremely high or low amount of precipitation. Kentucky had its ninth wettest year on record and Florida had its 11th driest. The Plains were a little on the wet side, and the East Coast and Southwest were somewhat on the dry side. 

STORMS/DISASTERS

The United States suffered through 23 weather/climate disasters in 2025 that cost at least $1 billion, according to Climate Central.

These 23 disasters cost a total of $115 billion, which is above the inflation-adjusted average of $67.6 billion. Only five other years were more expensive, with 2017 being the worst, with $405.2 billion in damage. 

Tornadoes

The United States had a preliminary count of 1,559 tornadoes in 2025, which is above the average of 1,225 twisters. The past year had the fifth highest tornado count on record. 

 Despite the extra tornadoes, and the strong ones that occurred in 2025, the death toll from twisters was close to average. Sixty-eight people died in tornadoes in 2025, compared to an average of 71.

North Dakota had quite a tornado year in 2025. The first EF-5 tornado - the strongest you can get - since 2013 touched down near Enderlin, North Dakota on June 20. North Dakota also had the most tornadoes in a single year with 72 of them. The old North Dakota record for a single year was 61 in 2010.

Hurricanes/Tropical Storms 

The Atlantic basin had 13 named storms in 2025, which is a smidge under the average. For the first time  since 2015, no hurricanes made landfall in the United States, which was a welcome break from a string of disastrous hurricane years. 

We were especially lucky since many of the hurricanes that did form were unusually strong. Three Category 5 hurricanes formed, which is the second  most on record. There was also Category 4 Gabrielle.

Easily the worst hurricane of the bunch was Melissa. A dropsonde recorded a wind gust of 252 mph at an elevation of 820 above the ocean as the hurricane was approaching Jamaica. That was a world record, exceeding the previous dropsonde record of 248 mph in Typhoon Mega in the western Pacific Ocean in 2010. 

DECEMBER IN REVIEW

December was incredibly warm in the West, with nine
states having their hottest December on record.
The Northeast was a little on the cool side. 

As mentioned above, the notable news about the December was the huge area in the West that had its hottest December on record. Overall, last month in the Lower 48 was the fifth warmest on record, NCEI tells us.    

Most months this year had very few areas in the United States that were cooler than normal However, in December, chilly air in the Northeast slightly offset the heat in the west. This helps explain why December was only the fifth warmest, and not the warmest.  

Nine northeastern states were cooler than most months in the 131 years of record. But none were particularly close to the coldest on record. The closest to the record was Pennsylvania, which had its 36th coolest December, so not that impressive. Here in Vermont, we had our 42nd chilliest December out of the past 131 years. Again, not an impressive record.

The West was impressive, however.

Three of the nine western states (Utah, Nevada and Arizona) that had their hottest December broke the previous record by more than 2.5 degrees. It's exceeding rare to break a previous hottest month record by one degree or more. 

Also three states - Utah, Wyoming and Colorado - were more than 10 degrees warmer than average. Again, that's an incredible feat. 

Precipitation in the Lower 48 averaged out to 2.01 inches, which is 0.33 inches below average. Like temperatures in December, precipitation was maldistributed. 

The central and southern Plains and most of the Gulf Coast were much drier than they should have been. Oklahoma had its driest December on record. Oklahoma City, for example, had just 0.09 inches of rain in December. They should have had about 1.8 inches. 

Seven other states in the parched region had one of their top ten driest Decembers on record.

On the opposite extreme, Washington, Montpelier, Idaho and Wyoming had one of their top ten wettest Decembers on record. 

 

2025 Was World's Third Warmest; Past Three Years In Top 3 Hottest

 Scientists confirmed this week that 2025 was the world's third hottest year since at least 1850. 

World temperatures compared to the long term 
average since 1850.  As you can see, virtually the
whole world was warmer than that average in 2025.
The blob of white in the Pacific Ocean represents
La Nina, which is supposed to cool the world
a bit, but didn't last year. The white blob
south of Greenland represents melt water from
that ice cap, which keeps the North Atlantic cooler,

As NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI tells us, 2025 was 1.17 degrees Celsius, or 2.11 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. Last year just barely missed tying 2023 as the second hottest year, missing it by 0.02 degrees Celsius or 0.04 degrees Fahrenheit.

At the start of 2025, climatologists said they expected the year to end up cooler than the previous two because a La Nina pattern had taken over for most of the year. La Ninas tend to cool the Earth slightly. 

That 2025 was a La Nina year and still ranked as third hottest is worrisome, since climate change clearly overwhelmed the expected cooling.

NCEI added that it's now becoming routine for years to end up warmer than the 20th century average by more than 1 degree Celsius:

"Notably, the 10 warmest years in the 176-year record have all occurred since 2015. Of the 10 warmest years on record, former record-holders 2015 and 2016 have dropped to eighth and fourth place, respectively. While 2016 was the first year to exceed the 1.0 degrees C threshold, that benchmark has since been surpassed in 2020 and again in the last three consecutive years (2023-25)."

Another benchmark the NCEI noted was oceanic heat content. In 2025 it was the highest on record, breaking the record set the year before. In fact, 2025 was the fifth year in a row in which oceanic heat content hit record highs.

This is important, since more than 90 percent of excess heat in the Earth's system is absorbed by the ocean. This extra heat content becomes fuel that would further bolster future global warming, and can create more intense storms than a cooler ocean would.  Hotter water also expands, which exacerbates sea level rise. 

NCEI also broke down the 2025 climate year in review into continents. 2025 was North America's fourth warmest year. Nine of the continent's ten warmest years have happened since 2006. The rate of warming in North America was 0.15 degrees Celsius per decade in much of the 20th century. Since 1981, that warming rate has more than doubled to 0.34 degrees Celsius per decade. 

Europe had its second warmest year on record. Asia was third warmest, South America was sixth warmest and Africa was seventh warmest.  The Arctic region had its second warmest year and Antarctica had it fourth warmest year in 2025.

Sources other than NCEI helped give a fuller picture of the extraordinary global warmth of 2025. Per Yale Climate Connections:

"According to Berkeley Earth, 9.1 percent of the Earth's surface had a record-warm year, including 10.6 percent of land areas and 8.3 percent of ocean areas. They estimated that 770 million people - 8.5 percent of Earth's population - experienced a locally warm annual average in 2025, The largest population centers affected by record warmth in 2025 were mostly in Asia, including about 450 million people in China."

Carbon Brief added these stats to the 2025 mix: 

Sea levels reached record highs in 2025, and sea level rise has accelerated noticeably in the past three decades. 

Cumulative ice loss from the world's glaciers and from the Greenland ice sheet reached a new record high in 2025, contributing to sea level rise. 

Concentrations of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached record high levels in 2025.

Arctic sea ice saw its lowest winter peak on record and its 10th lowest summer minimum extent. Sea ice around Antarctica  reached its third lowest summer minimum extent. 

PREDICTIONS

The New Year has barely begun but experts are saying 2026 will bring us no relief from the recent climate changed-heat. 

Carbon Brief is saying 2026 will be the second, third or fourth warmest on record, very similar to the temperatures we saw in 2023 and 2025. 

Lingering La Nina might suppress temperatures a little in the opening months of the year, but an expected El Nino later in the year might bring 2026 to a hot finish, says the folks at Carbon Brief.

The Met Office in the UK is also saying 2026 will be among the top four warmest on record, and they're leaning toward this year being the second warmest year, coming in a bit cooler than the record holder 2024.

Berkeley Earth says the odds favor 2026 coming in at #4 on hottest year list, giving it a 51 percent chance of that happening. The odds that 2026 would come in 3rd place is 12 percent,; 2nd place 21 percent.  They give 2026 a 10 percent chance that this year will be the hottest on record. The chances that this year will be merely the fifth warmest or cooler are just 6 percent, according to Berkeley Earth. 

If you look at a chart of how each year's temperature compares to other years, you see that the world began warming rapidly at around 1980. 

But the past three years have been way, way hotter than anything seen before. Nations and regulators,  especially in Asia and in the world shipping industry have cut aerosol pollutants in recent years. These new environmental rules have allowed more sun to heat the Earth, since air pollution is blocking less of it. 

That could at least partly explain why the past three years have been so out whack with the heat. The question now is, will this much faster pace of warming that started in 2023 continue or will it level off a bit? Nobody knows for sure, but the question is important.

It's bad enough that the world has been warming so fast since the 1980s. If we've entered a new, faster pace of climate change, we're definitely not ready for it.  

Editor's Note: We'll soon do a followup post on how the United States did with climate in 2025, including an extraordinarily hot December in the western United States

Once Again, Record Highs In The United States Far Outpaced Record Lows In 2025

A time/temperature sign on a St. Albans, Vermont 
bank building on a record hot day in June, 2025.
Record highs greatly outpaced record lows across
the United States last year. 

Records are made to be broken. 

That's especially true in the realm of weather and climate. 

Weather stations across the United States break tens of thousands of record highs and record lows each year. The recently ended 2025 was no exception. 

But, all those records last year reveal yet another sign of climate change. 

If the climate wasn't changing, the number of record highs and record lows should be roughly equal. Sure, certain months might have more record highs or record lows if there's a persistent weather pattern.

But those persistent patterns rarely last longer than a month. Two at the very most. By the time you count up an entire year, you should get a general match between record highs and record lows. 

In recent years, at least here in the United States and almost surely in the rest of the world, record highs are far outpacing record lows. 

The year 2025 certainly demonstrated that. There were about 2.5 times the number of daily record high temperatures, and record high daily overnight lows than records the cold side. 

The precise numbers were 41,792 record highs and 17,638 record lows.

You might get different figures from different sources depending on how many weather stations were analyzed. In this case and most others, the weather stations that were looked at had decades of records to look back upon. 

If a weather station was up and running for only, say five years, that station would constantly break high and low temperatures, and would not be representative of any particular trend. The Southeast Regional Climate Center, which compiled the statistics, didn't include weather stations that have only been operating for a few decades or less. 

2025 COMPARED AND HIGHLIGHTS 

While record highs far outpaced record lows in 2025, the previous two years were even more extreme. In 2024 there were 4.5 times as many record highs as record lows. In 2023 there were about three times as many as record highs compared to lows, the Washington Post reports. 

Also, in January, 2025, for the first time since May, 2023, there were more cold records than hot records. (1,370 record highs to 1,893 record lows). Almost all the January record lows, about 1,500 of them, hit during one six day cold snap between January 19 and 23.

An El Nino was underway for much of 2023 and pretty much all of 2024, which tends to make the United States hotter. That probably explains why the hot vs.cold records were more lopsided in those years than in 2025. 

The most out of whack month in 2025 was December, with 5,684. Most of the western United States had a record hot December, which explains that high number of records. March and April were also full of record highs. Each month had more than 4,200 record highs. 

Of the cities in the Lower 48 with records going back to the late 1800s, Brownsville, Texas had the most record highs, with 32 of them. Most of those records came in the final three months of the year. However, Honolulu, Hawaii beat out Brownsville with 50 record highs. Thirty-one of those Honolulu record highs were for warm overnight lows 

Fort Wayne, Indiana and Sioux City, Iowa had the most record lows, with just six each.

This first few days of 2026 are picking up where last year left off. There have been numerous record highs, mostly across the South so far this month. We have a couple more days of record highs go. There are signs parts of the U.S. could get a spate of record lows later this month. 

 

Incredibly, Vermont Just Had A Top 10 Warmest Year, Sixth Year In A ROW That Happened

A torrid reading on a bank time/temperature sign in
St. Albans, Vermont on June 23. Incredibly, as 
measured in Burlington, 2025 was the sixth
consecutive year that was among the top ten
hottest years on record. 

Crunching the year 2025 weather data from Burlington, Vermont, I was surprised as hell to find out that the year just ended was the ninth warmest on record. 

That makes 2025 the sixth year in a row that was among the top ten warmest on record. 

There are 12 years in the top ten warmest years list, due to ties. Now, all but one of the top ten warmest years in Burlington happened since 2006. The rather recent year 1998 is the only other year in the top ten. Records go back to the 1880s.

Climate change is making its mark in Vermont, that's for sure. 

According to an April, 2025 Climate Central report, Vermont is the 6th fastest warming state in the U.S. Out of 242 U.S. cities Climate Central analyzed, Burlington is the fifth fastest warming city, after Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada and El Paso and Tyler, Texas. 

I was surprised 2025 scored in the top 10 because we had such a chilly December,  But the streak goes on. 

Still, 2025 was the coldest year since 2019, which was the 28th warmest on record, which is still a pretty high ranking. 

Until things started cooling down at the end of the year, 2025 was consistently warm. Burlington logged in with the fifth warmest spring and the fifth warmest summer on record.

March and July tied for the sixth warmest on record, Burlington tied for the seventh warmest June on record and tied for the tenth warmest September. 

The hottest temperature of the year was 99 degrees on June 23rd, which ties for the third hottest day on record in Burlington. Across the pond in Plattsburgh, it reached 101 that day, their hottest day on record. 

Seven daily record highs were tied or broken in Burlington during 2025. The 86 degree reading on October 5, tied the all time record for that entire month. That 86 degree October high was first set just a year earlier, in 2024.

Seventeen days in 2025 in Burlington reached 90 degrees. That brings to ten the number of years that have had at least that many 90 degree days. It was the sixth year in a row with at least ten 90 degree days. Until now, that hadn't happened before. 

RAINFALL AND DROUGHT 

The past year might be most remembered as slamming Vermont with a severe drought. It's true that precipitation in the summer and early autumn was below normal. But we've seen worse. The trouble had a lot to do with the above normal temperatures. 

Climate change again. 

Things were drying out by mid-August but then a weird heat wave hit. We endure three days of temperature sin the mid and upper 90s peaking with a reading of 98 degrees on August 12. Most Vermont heat waves are quite humid. The record June heat wave brought some of the highest dew points on record. It was actually far more muggy than Florida. 

The August heat wave was different. It was desert dry. So dry, that it set off a flash drought, Things deteriorated to dangerous levels in days. Then it kept worsening gradually until right after that record heat in early October. October was actually the fourth wettest on record in Burlington.

Gradual recovery ensued. 

Overall, rainfall in Burlington was 38.19 inches, or 0.66 inches above normal. It was actually the 29th wettest year in the 132 years I analyzed. 

We also had the third July 10 flood disaster on record. Severe flooding on July 10, 2025 mostly hit the Northeast Kingdom. It wasn't as bad as in 2023 and 2024, but bad enough. 

A Bit Of Challenging Vermont Weather To Ring Out A Very Challenging 2025

We've got  modest snowfall coming overnight, with one
to three inches in most areas of Vermont. A little more
than that in the mountains. Roads could be a little
slick for New Years revelers late tonight. 

We've had a very challenging 2025, both in terms of weather and especially outside the realm of weather.  

For those of you who don't want to think about anything else that happened in 2025, I'll give you the rundown of the weather you'll see as you ring in 2026. 

Seems harmless, right?   

And for the most part, the weather will indeed be relatively safe. No new ice storms, no floods, no blizzards, not enough wind to snap the power lines. 

You should be fine tonight unless you're not careful on the roads. Or don't know how to dress for winter weather. Because it is going to snow overnight. And Vermont ain't Florida. 

So let's unpack the weather situation here:

Overnight, a small but fairly dynamic storm will move out of the Great Lakes and into northern New York and Vermont. The storm will be able to pick some moisture from the lakes and from those lake affect snow squalls going on out there. 

We had some clear skies in much of Vermont this morning, except in far southwestern parts of the state, as snow off of Lake Ontario is getting all the way to New England.

It'll cloud up pretty fast this afternoon, as temperatures rise into the mid and upper 20s.  You might start to see some light flurries after dark. Occasional light snow will continue all evening leading up to midnight. 

Most of the action will hit in northern New York, where the snow will tend to be heavier and hit hardest around midnight.  

Here in Vermont, it'll probably be snowing in many area as we ring in the New Year.  Not heavily, not all the time, but it'll be around. You'll of course encounter roads that are a bit iffy. Most of the snow in the Green Mountain State will sweep in a little after midnight. 

Most of us won't get much snow, but the timing will be bad, coming right when it'll be the peak drunk driving hours around midnight and a couple hours after. 

Since it will be cold, the snow will blow around easily, so you might have trouble seeing things if a truck passes you on the Interstate. 

If you'll be celebrating outside, dress for it. Temperatures around midnight will be in the teens to around 20. 

The little storm's cold front could stir up some snow squalls or at least pretty heavy snow showers, probably a little after midnight. So take that into consideration if you're driving anywhere after midnight. 

Maybe it'll be best to sleep it off wherever you are overnight instead of getting in your car and driving home.  Or take an Uber, though they'll be hard to come by and super expensive tonight. 

Total accumulation from tonight's little system will amount to one to three inches for most of us.  The valleys of southeast Vermont will probably get less than an inch. The northern Champlain Valley will probably come out close to three inches or maybe even a tad more. Our ski areas are in for a modest three to six inches. 

The New Year will get off to a cold start. Today, the last day of 2025, will probably be the warmest day we'll see in at least a week. As noted, it won't exactly be warm today. Starting tomorrow, daytime highs for most of us in the Green Mountain State won't get out of the teens until next Monday at the earliest. 

Low temperatures each night through next Monday will be within a few degrees either side of zero. If we manage to get a nighttime period of calm, clear weather, it could get well below zero. It's all about that persistent Greenland Block/Arctic Oscillation I explained yesterday. 

It will warm up eventually, of course. Weather patterns always change eventually. Unless we get a surprise I'm not seeing yet, the next chance of any kind of thawing or at least relatively mild air won't come until at least January 11 or so.  

November Global Temperatures Were 3rd Warmest On Record

November, 2025 was the world's third warmest on
record. As usual, it was hard to find the few
cooler than normal areas (in blue)

 Continuing a trend that started half a year ago, the world had its third warmest November on record, according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. 

 This was the sixth month in a row that the world had a third warmest month, in each case just behind 2023 and 2024. 

The warmest places relative to normal were in the Arctic, most of the Northern Hemisphere land areas, eastern Antarctica, southern Africa and eastern Europe. 

As always in this age of climate change, November cool spots were hard to find. Those few relatively chilly areas included northeastern Russia, parts of the central an eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, bits and pieces of Australia, and a persistent cold blob south of Greenland. 

We do the following every month to show how entrenched climate change has become: If you under age 49 you have never seen a month that globally was even a tiny bit cooler than the 20th century average. 

Depending upon how the December figures come out, 2025 will either be the third hottest year on record, to it will tie with 2023 as second hottest. Last year was the globe's hottest since people starting keeping reliable records in the 1850. 

The warm November contributed to a year that's messing with a key climate goal the United Nations set nearly a decade ago. 

The UN in 2016 adopted a legally binding compact -- the Paris Agreement -- that aims to keep global temperatures no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 20th century agreement.

As Yale Climate Connections reports, it looks the warmth of this year will mean the three-year average temperature, 2023 -2025 will end up warmer 1.5 degree Celsius. 

Does that mean the Paris Agreement is violated? Depends on who you ask, because nobody really defined the parameter of what 1.5 degrees mean in the real world. But my opinion, yes. 

The World Meteorological Organization's 2024 State of the Global Climate Report states that they've convened a panel of experts to determine how exceeding the 1.5 degrees would be defined and tracked. 

We probably will have a few more years that average less than 1.5 degrees below the 20th century average, but they will become  increasingly rare.

Elsewhere, climatologists also like to keep an eye on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, as those are a key indicator of the planet's climate health. 

The news from the top and bottom of the world was not good. Arctic sea ice in November was the second lowest on record for this time of year. Once we got into December, Arctic sea ice ran neck and neck with 2016 as the least on record. 

Antarctica sea ice was the fourth lowest on record, at least since satellites started keeping track of it in 1978. Only 2016, 2023 and 2024 had less ice way down under. 

UNITED STATES

November in the Lower 48 of the United States was the fourth warmest on record. 

November in the Lower 48 of the U.S was the
fourth warmest on record States in darkest 
red had their warmest on record November. 

The warmth was especially strong in the western United States. Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Utah had their hottest November on record. Utah shattered the record by more than a degree, which is a really impressive

New Mexico had its second warmest November. Colorado, Oklahoma and Wyoming each had their third warmest November. 

When the western part of the nation is warm, more often than not, the eastern part is cool. That was true in November, 2025. But the eastern chill was not nearly as extreme as the western balminess. 

The state-by-state rankings go back 131 years. The "coldest" state in the rankings, was New York, which had its 67th warmest, (or 64th coolest) November on record. Here in Vermont, we had our 62nd warmest November out of the past 131. So pretty much in the middle of the pack.  

The Lower 48 had its 26th driest November out of the past 131 years. Dry weather was well distributed around the nation, but the southeast corner of the U.S. was especially arid. South Carolina had its second driest November, and in Florida, it was third driest. 

Only three states - Arizona, California and South Dakota were noticeably wetter than average, but were not nearly soggy enough to threaten any records. 

Meteorological autumn- September 1 through November 30, was the third warmest on record in the Lower 48. This autumn, all states in the Lower 48 except the Carolinas were at least 1 degree warmer than the 20th century average. 

Seven states - Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington - had their warmest autumn on record.  Remarkably, everyone west of the Mississippi Rivet had one of their top 10 warmest autumn on record. All those states except California had one of their top five hottest falls. (California only had its tenth warmest. 

For the record, Vermont overall had its 23rd warmest autumn out of the past 131 years.  

American Exceptionalism? Lower 48 Of U.S. Cold While Rest Of World Had A Hot January, 2025

Unlike most of the rest of the world, large
sections of the United States were cooler than
normal in January, 2025 (blue shading)

 Early data suggests the world had a record to near record hot January, 2025, but the United States, at least the Lower 48, didn't join the climate change hot party. 

I'll have another post with more details on global data very soon. But let's look at the United States first, courtesy of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

As almost all of the rest of the world basked in odd January warmth, it was a remarkably chilly January for the U.S. if you don't count Alaska and Hawaii. It was also incredibly dry. 

THE COLD

It was the 33rd coldest January out of the past 131 years in the Lower 48. It was the coldest January since 1988.

January bucked a trend toward warmer and warmer months thanks to climate change. Despite a warmer world, cold weather patterns can still develop, creating individual months that harken back to a colder time a few decades ago.

I hope you liked the chill of January, 2025, as this type of winter month will keep getting more and more rare. 

No state managed to have one of their top ten coldest Januaries, but nine states had one of their top 20 coldest Januaries. Few states were on the warm side. Only California, Oregon, Washington and Maine were a bit on the mild side. 

Meanwhile, Alaska has its 8th warmest January out of the past 101 years. 

THE DRY

It was sixth driest January on record across the U.S., too, as we really lacked the usual dynamic storms that regularly sweep across the nation in January, 

Seventeen states, including Vermont had one of top 10 driest Januaries this year. (Here in Vermont it was eight driest).  

Most of the U.S. was dry in January too. Anything
in beige or brown was dry on this map. Overall,
the Lower 48 had its sixth driest January on record. 

There were no states that were on the wet side, which is very unusual since in any given month, the nation is usually divided into wet areas and drier ones.  This time, everybody seems to have missed out on the precipitation. 

There were some relatively wet pockets in some states in the northwestern and central Plains, and in northern Florida, but they weren't enough to skew state averages to the wet side. 

About 42 percent of the nation was officially in drought in January, up about 4 percent from the end of 'December. 

This dryness was punctuated by the nation's first weather/climate related disaster of the year. Barely a week into the New Year, the extremely devastating California wildfires began,  At last check, the toll was 29 dead and 16,000 structures destroyed. 

Those fires have finally gone out as southern California has finally entered a somewhat wetter weather pattern. 

It seems does like there's a slight shift in February going on that should make the U.S, relatively warmer and wetter compared to average.  It won't be another January, but it still seems like it might turn out to be a slightly colder than average month for the Lower 48. 

The northern tier of the nation will probably still come out as cold in February, so the nation as a whole   will almost certainly not be among the warmer Februaries we've had. 

Unlike in January,  an active storm track from the the West Coast clear across to the Eastern Seaboard for much of this month will ensure a fairly wet February. Especially compared to January,