Matt Lanza

The 2025 drying of Texas has commenced, so what does it mean?

We’re off to a fairly volatile start to spring in Texas, and the risks are not really coming via thunderstorms but rather via wildfire risk. For the third time in less than 2 weeks, there is a “critical” wildfire risk in Texas (as well as Oklahoma) today. This means the threat of wildfires is about as bad as it gets for some of these areas.

(NOAA SPC)

Not all of Texas is included in this risk, but much of the western half of the state, as well as North Texas into Oklahoma are there. The combination of dry ground, expanding drought, low humidity, and strong winds will make for a dangerous wildfire risk in those parts of the southern Plains.

Powerful wind gusts in the Panhandle, Oklahoma, and West Texas will exacerbate high fire risks today. (Pivotal Weather)

Wind gusts of 40 to 80 mph are likely this morning and afternoon, especially in the Texas Panhandle, the Caprock, perhaps the Hill Country and North Texas to the west of Dallas-Fort Worth through Wichita Falls and up into parts of Oklahoma. In fact, winds have already gusted to 81 mph in Amarillo and 83 mph in Lubbock today. Those winds will be hospitable to rapid fire spread should something get started, hence the concern. Additionally, winds that strong will be capable of producing some non-thunderstorm wind damage on their own west of I-35.

Additional fire risks will follow in the days ahead, including tomorrow, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, especially in west Texas and eastern New Mexico.

How did we get here?

Texas has been in and drought as it often is, but in recent years it sure feels like we’ve been “in” drought more than out of it. Since the start of 2025, Texas has struggled mightily in the rainfall department. With the exception of the Piney Woods and parts of Southeast Texas near Houston, it has been a very, very dry start to the year.

Much of the western two-thirds of Texas are off to a painfully dry start to 2025. (High Plains Regional Climate Center)

Lubbock, Midland, and El Paso are all having top 15 driest starts to a year, with El Paso seeing less than a tenth of an inch of rainfall so far in 2025. Wichita Falls, Abilene, and San Angelo are all having very dry starts to a year, though not historically so. This has allowed for expansion of drought since the beginning of year, with the beginning stages of a rapid onset drought in the last 10 days or so.

Drought has expanded in coverage across Texas since January with a somewhat increased pace just in the last 10 days or so. (US Drought Monitor)

The recent bump in windy, dry storms has helped accelerate this process. According to an early March forecast update from the National Interagency Fire Center, “Confidence is increasing in a high impact spring fire season across the southern Great Plains. The expected weather pattern and its impacts to the fire environment are of major concern, and at least weekly high-end wind events are plausible through March and April.”

What’s to come?

It would appear that after this weekend’s event, we have another one (albeit less intense) coming around midweek next week, followed by perhaps another one next weekend. In fact, the 8 to 14 day hazard outlook from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center suggests worsening drought over the next 2 weeks in west Texas and New Mexico.

Rapid onset, worsening drought is likely in western portions of Texas and eastern New Mexico over the next two weeks. (NOAA CPC)

The next two weeks suggest near to below average precipitation in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma as well, with some areas likely to remain quite dry. This is not uncommon in a La Niña event, even one that’s winding down. But this is a rather significant event for a generally minor La Niña. Perhaps things can alleviate some later this spring or by summer. Otherwise, it could be a long, painfully hot, problematic summer in the southern Plains.

Austerity measures threaten to stall absolutely amazing, cost-saving hurricane forecast progress

Hurricane forecasting has never been better. We say that a lot, but the statistics bear that out, and last hurricane season was literally the best one yet.

National Hurricane Center track forecast errors have been steadily improving over the last 30 years, and 2024 set a new benchmark. (NOAA)

This week, the National Hurricane Center released a preview of their annual verification report. They rigorously verify their forecasts each year and compare them to the key tools that they utilize to assist in forecasting. And this year was a doozy in a good way. Put one way: The track forecast 5 days out in 2024 was equivalent to the error of a 2-day track forecast as recently as 2000-2005. Think about that for a second. They have improved track forecast errors by a whopping 3 days on average in 20 years. A 3-day track forecast today performs better than a 1-day track forecast did on average in the late 90s and early 2000s as well. The amount of improved lead time you have on storms today compared to less than 20 years ago is incredible.

Intensity forecasting is another matter. While it too has improved over the last 20 to 30 years, the rate of improvement is not quite to the level of track error. That said, a lot of research has been coming out in recent years with respect to rapid intensification, and one would expect to see these forecasts pick up further improvement in the years ahead. This statement will likely put off some folks, but sometimes the truth can do that: It is likely that climate change plays some role in the idea of chasing a moving target. This is especially true in recent years with extremely warm water temperatures in the Atlantic basin. How has this changed the behavior of rapid intensification? That in and of itself makes things difficult. So while the long-term average continues to go in the right direction, we need to continually invest in research and understanding of the mechanics of hurricanes to improve both lead time and forecast accuracy even more.

Intensity forecast errors have been improving at a slower rate and with more year-to-year noise than track forecasts, however the trends are very positive. (NOAA)

Within the report, the probability of detecting a rapidly intensifying hurricane in 2024 sat at around 70 percent. I don’t know what that was 20 years ago, but it was nowhere near that level. Per the report, “although RI remains one of the biggest challenges at NHC, it is worth noting that advancements in hurricane modeling and understanding of the science are making a difference in improving forecasts for even the most challenging cases.” Investment in research is literally paying dividends. As Jeff Masters noted in his discussion on this topic, these research improvements likely saved billions of dollars in 2024 itself, let alone over the last 10 years or so.

Some of the work that’s gotten us here has happened organically through research to improve forecasts and models, often funded by federal programs, but the bulk of this specific for hurricanes is likely attributable to the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP). HFIP was established within NOAA back in 2007 after the very bad 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. HFIP goals are to improve hurricane forecasts, extend lead time, extend forecast confidence, and more. It’s interesting to read comments from Bill Read in 2008 about the HFIP and then to see the results we have in the 15+ years since. Our Houston audience should know Bill Read who is about as legendary as a meteorologist can be in a community. He was also the director of the National Hurricane Center from 2008 through 2012 as HFIP began being implemented.

A 2008 interview with Bill Read for the Tampa Tribune discussing the state of hurricane forecasting. (Tampa Tribune via newspapers.com)

The problem is always funding. HFIP got a nice boost back in the first Trump administration when the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act was passed by Congress. Millions of dollars were allocated to weather research with that law. HFIP was specifically cited in the bill as an area to focus on. And indeed all this money and hard work to improve these forecasts is now bearing fruit.

But we sit in a perilous moment. At the risk of getting too political here, the current “slash and burn” philosophy of cutting government spending risks halting the progress that has been made. Meteorology is sitting at a crossroads right now as it is: Physics-based modeling and AI-based modeling are now both entering operational phases together, and the work being done to marry the best parts of these different technologies is just beginning. The potential results are tantalizing. Forecasts will never be perfect. But if we can continue to reduce errors and improve forecast lead time, we can save lives, save property, and reduce the economic impact from storms. If the couple billion that was put into this effort led to the economy saving tens of billions of dollars from hurricane impacts in recent years, then how does cutting a few hundred million or a billion help improve efficiency, as is the stated goal of Department of Government Efficiency? It’s a simple math problem, and the math doesn’t check out, no matter how much of a deficit hawk you may be. If these programs added no value and cost more than they saved or added to the economy, that would be another thing entirely.

Bill Proenza was director of the NHC back in 2007. He had an interesting tenure, leading the NHC through a tumultuous 6 months. He was known for being a bit brash and for publicly criticizing his bosses, the combination of which led him to be let go from that job. That style may work in some sectors, but in the NHC, the best leaders usually cause fewer distractions. Regardless of that, he made a very good point back in 2011 during talk of budget cuts in that Congress He told the Miami Herald at the time that the short-term savings of cutting hurricane research flights (allocating $17 million in funding to the program it was under versus the $29 million it had been funded at) would come with higher long-term costs. This is exactly the problem. Your political ideology may color how you feel about cutting spending, but the simple reality is that when people without expertise in matters begin to cut programs without understanding them, they’re accepting higher long-term costs in exchange for the short-term gratification of “hey, we did something.” If one is truly concerned about budgets and deficits, they would look at this problem through nuanced lens. Could efficiency be improved in certain areas of programs or research and development? Absolutely. I’m sure it could be. Does the possibility of taking an axe to a program through significant personnel losses or funding cuts put us all at risk of poorer long-term outcomes both physically and fiscally? Yes. Is the prudent way slower? Yes. Is the slower way smarter? Also, yes.

The forecast improvements in recent years have produced amazing outcomes, saved lives, and saved the economy billions of dollars. If we pull the rug out from under this program right when it’s literally at its best, we risk halting that progress, increasing costs and burdens on federal, state, and local governments, not to mention people and small businesses in the path of increasingly complex and dangerous storms. It’s simply not the fiscally prudent thing to do. Many folks in hurricane alley share the priorities of the current administration, which is fine but it’s important to understand the potential ramifications and impacts to us all in certain instances and to make sure your elected officials understand that. Given what we’ve witnessed between Texas and Florida since 2017 or so, it’s in our best interest to continue to work to improve hurricane forecasts as much as possible.

2025’s hurricane outlook season begins, but what is actually known at this point?

It’s a very quiet week nationally, weather-wise, so let’s discuss hurricane season. It’s the time of year where some outlets in the infantile battle of “who called it first” begin releasing seasonal hurricane outlooks. I say that somewhat derisively, but sometimes it does seem like a never-ending battle we fight in this field: First and loudest vs. most prudent.

Did the sizzle fizzle?

Anyway, the pre-hurricane season season is here now. WeatherBELL, the outlet that said last season would be a “season from hell” is back for 2025, though striking a less foreboding tone. They call for about 15 to 19 named storms, 7 to 9 hurricanes, and 2 to 3 majors. Their idea of a less hostile season is rooted in the cooling of sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic. And indeed, if you compare the most recent available data from February 23rd to the same time in 2024 (with a few additional days added on either side), you can see things have cooled rather considerably between Africa and the islands, or the Main Development Region (MDR).

The MDR has cooled by anywhere from 1 to 2 degrees Celsius versus this same time last year, however the Gulf and the western Atlantic are notably warmer. (NOAA PSL)

While we may say “Oh, that’s good, 2025 is way cooler in the MDR!” the reality is that those water temperatures would still be at record levels had we not had 2024 and 2023 happen.

While sea surface temperatures across the MDR are running about 0.75-1°C cooler on average versus last year, they’re still at the 3rd highest level on record, trailing only 2024 and 2023. (Kim Wood, University of Arizona)

Has the Atlantic’s fever broken? It’s probably too early to speculate a whole lot on that, as what caused it to happen in the first place is still a little bit debatable. So I would refrain from making any grand proclamations about what’s happening out there. Those of us that follow sea-surface temperatures in the tropics closely in the run up to hurricane season know how quickly things can change.

The Gulf and Caribbean are still at or near records, however, which gives anyone living on the Gulf Coast or in the Southeast a little bit of pause. I certainly don’t want to undersell what’s happening there, but it’s only February 26th. A warm Gulf in spring has not been uncommon in recent years. In fact, if you compare the March through May sea-surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico over the last 10 years (2015-2024) versus the 10 years prior (2005-2014) to that, you can see a notable warming.

Sea-surface temperatures in the Gulf and just off the Southeast U.S. coast have been much warmer in recent years than earlier in this century. (NOAA PSL)

Some of this is likely related to climate change, some of it related to whatever is happening presently with respect to warm global water temperatures, and some of it could be internal variability. The Gulf is slowly warming overall, but no season sees this trend happening more substantially than spring. Most other seasons are averaging about 0.25 to 0.5°C warmer, whereas spring is clearly 0.75° or warmer. My point here: While this is troubling, it’s also not guaranteed to continue at this record amplitude into the meat and potatoes of hurricane season.

So, our Atlantic SSTs are cooler in the MDR, warmer in the Gulf and Caribbean, and much warmer in the northern Atlantic versus 2024.

What of La Niña?

We are currently in a low-end weak La Niña event. Historically, this will end up near the bottom (or “least cold”) of the list of La Niña events since 1950.

An extremely weak La Niña event may be about to peak with a fluctuation back to neutral, or La Nada conditions later this spring. (NOAA Climate.gov blog)

Will we end up seeing a flip to El Niño this summer? Well, your guess is as good as mine. When we look at the EU’s Copernicus program chart of multi-ensemble forecasts for El Niño, we see the several hundred members skew toward an average near zero, which would keep us generally close to ENSO neutral (La Nada) conditions heading into spring. If you want to squint, you may be able to see a 55/45 split toward El Niño over La Niña but that may be presumptive.

The forecast heading into spring and summer shows most models congregating near ENSO neutral/La Nada conditions in tropical Pacific. (EU Copernicus program)

Remember, La Niña was expected last summer, and those cooling events in the tropical Pacific are extremely highly correlated to active Atlantic hurricane seasons. That, combined with the raging warm water temperatures led to the catastrophic forecasts last season. This year we are unlikely to have La Niña during hurricane season, though we may end up with limited signal from the tropical Pacific overall. We will still have very warm water temperatures, but they won’t be as doomsday looking as last year.

So putting those points together: Cooler Atlantic SSTs, a weakening already weak La Niña trending to neutral, and I think you have a recipe for what should be above average hurricane season outlooks from anyone issuing them in the coming weeks. However, they will not be anywhere near last year’s numbers. Is that good? Bad? I don’t know; this meteorologist tends to think seasonal hurricane outlooks are not particularly valuable. But the appetite for them is insatiable. Last year’s hurricane forecasts mostly just snuck into the lower end of the verified ranges and the worst-case seasonal forecast outcomes were not even close to being realized. But it ended up being the third costliest hurricane season on record in the Atlantic. So were the forecasts wrong? Or were they right because it did end up being such a bad year even though the numbers weren’t realized? Does it even matter?

Whatever the seasonal forecasters say in the weeks ahead, our messaging here remains consistent: You should prepare for every hurricane season the same way, as if that will be the year the storm comes to you. And as we’ve learned on more than one occasion in recent years, even “weaker” storms can cause dramatic damage. Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. Much more to come in the weeks ahead on the upcoming season.

Dude, where’s my snowstorm?

Funny things happen in the world of weather. As a meteorologist, I have seen more than my fair share of busted forecasts, surprise hits, forecasts that actually panned out, and surprise misses. Another snow event looks likely to join the long, long list of the ones that got away for parts of the Mid-Atlantic. As of Sunday we discussed a winter storm both in the context of the Mid-South, which is still intact but also for the Mid-Atlantic. Just for comparison, here is the snow forecast over the last several model runs for PM Wednesday and Thursday morning in the Mid-Atlantic.

Going back to Friday, the snow forecast (this, from the European model) has cratered over the Mid-Atlantic, as the storm track has become more suppressed. (Pivotal Weather)

That is about as ugly an outcome as I’ve seen for a snow lover. And that’s the European model, one of the better performing ones historically with snowstorms. So what the heck happened?

Well, basically, nothing comes together in time. If you look at the last few days of models runs from the European model, you can see a slow trend away from meaningfulness. On Saturday, the Euro depicted a 987 mb low off Delmarva. On Sunday it shifted a little to the southeast, and then yesterday, it popped up to 1001 mb and well southeast. The consequence here is that the storm basically never gets together now off the East Coast in a position close enough to deliver snow to the Mid-Atlantic, with the exception of maybe the Virginia Tidewater and northeastern North Carolina.

A comparison of ECMWF model runs over the last 4 days shows the surface low on Thursday before sunrise shifting from near Delmarva to well off the North Carolina coast. (Tropical Tidbits)

You can look up higher in the atmosphere and see how the more bombastic idea of a storm near the Mid-Atlantic coast gradually faded over the last few days too.

A stronger trough and disturbance around 10,000 feet up on the models over the weekend has opened up some and shifted south, reducing how far north the impacts get. (Tropical Tidbits)

You can also look under more of the hood here and see how the ensemble members of the European model summed things up. The number of members with 4 inches of snow or more got to 80 or 90 percent in portions of Delmarva on Sunday before plunging to 10 percent yesterday.

Of the European ensemble model’s 51 members, nearly 40 to 80 percent showed a 4″+ snowstorm in their Saturday runs over a broad chunk of the Mid-Atlantic. That shrunk to just a small area south of Salisbury, MD and north of Cape Hatteras today. (Pivotal Weather)

Storms like this with such a potent push of cold air require a balancing act to come to fruition on the East Coast in particular. If one of the pieces of the puzzle doesn’t time itself perfectly, the whole thing can shift markedly in one direction or another. In this case, the storm didn’t disappear, it just gets going too far southeast and offshore to make much difference. Suppression is the word we often use, and the whole mess got suppressed to the southeast. And thus, your snow forecast maps reflect the change in ways that will disappoint many winter lovers in DC or Philadelphia or my former stomping grounds of South Jersey.

This will be a potent snowstorm for the Virginia Tidewater, including Virginia Beach and Norfolk and a decent little storm for Richmond as well. (NOAA)

In fact, this whole mess gets so suppressed that even as the storm comes northeast, it passes far enough off the coast of Canada to even avoid impacts in the Maritimes. Now, notably, the 7 to 13 inch forecast for Norfolk is actually quite impressive. If the high end of that range were to verify, it would be a top ten storm for the Tidewater and the biggest since 2010. Most areas will not see more than 10 inches in all likelihood, but either way, this will be a healthy snowstorm for Hampton Roads.

Overall, this proves another lesson in treading carefully with all storms, especially winter ones. This is one reason why the NWS usually doesn’t provide snow forecast maps more than 3 days in advance of winter storms. Often times, so much changes so erratically in that day 3 to 7 timeframe that those maps have little real value. Sharing speculation may be fun, but it won’t really give you a better reputation as a forecaster.