If you spend enough time outdoors in the summer, you are bound to run into a situation that exposes you to the dangers of lightning. The mountains are especially prone, as they are either in or close to the base of the clouds, which makes for a shorter and easier electrical connection to the ground.

A study done in Colorado several years ago showed that lightning strikes peaks and ridges seven times more often than adjacent valleys. So, the odds are not in your favor when recreating at altitude in the summer months.

Close Calls

When I worked as a Climbing Ranger in the Tetons back in the 1980’s and 90’s I had a number of close encounters with lightning.  One particular instance that remains vivid in my mind was on the north face of the Middle Teton, a pitch and a half below the summit. That’s when big cumulus clouds started to come into our view, off to east over the Gros Ventre mountains. By the time we topped out, we were in the thick of it; rain, hail, gusty winds, and lightning flashing all around us.

Needless to say, we made a hasty descent, rappelling down the Northwest side of the mountain, getting off the ridgetop as quickly as possible, as Thor (god of thunder) kept tossing hand-grenades at us. It was as nerve-wracking as being in a war zone during a shelling.

Even if you know a thing or two about the weather, spend enough time out in the mountains and at some point you’ll end up playing dodgeball with thunderstorms, on a day hike, a backpacking trip, or climbing a peak.

Another bit of advice, even a small probability of thunderstorms the forecast should be heeded. A 10 or 20 percent chance might quickly turn into a 100 percent chance where you are.

The Dangers of Lightning

It is truly a scary experience being caught outdoors in a thunderstorm. Even scarier when you are in the mountains, up in the base of the clouds. Statistically though, your chances of being killed by lightning are relatively low. On average, 30 to 40 people a year in the United States are killed by lightning, but 10 times that amount suffer injuries from lightning.

Part of the reason for the greater number of injuries is because a lightning bolt has about the same explosive power as a hand-grenade. The kill radius is about 25 feet, and the casualty or injury radius is about 50 feet.

The electrical energy and intense heat from lightning can hurt you in several different ways:

1) Direct Strike: This rarely happens, however, if you were unlucky enough to take a direct hit, it would be game-over, right then and there.

2) Conduction: Electrical energy travels through all metal objects, as well as graphite, carbon-fiber and water.

3) Side-flash: The heat & electrical current emanating outward through the air from a nearby lightning strike can cause cardiac arrest, concussive injuries, severe burns and/or nerve damage.

4) Ground Current: When lightning strikes the ground, the electrical current is carried outward, radially, in all directions along the ground surface. If that current reaches you, it can travel up through your body. Cardiac arrest, burns and nerve damage are all possible from ground current.

Conduction and direct hits, combined, account for only about 20-percent of all lightning casualties. Side-flash accounts for around 30-percent. Ground current alone accounts for around half, or 50-percent, of all lightning injuries and fatalities.

Where to Hide

“When thunder roars, go indoors” is the mantra from the National Weather Service, which is good advice if you are in town. Out in the mountains, on the trail or on the lake or the river, we are often miles away from a totally safe shelter. So, here are a few tips on how to avoid becoming a lightning casualty when far from the safety of a building or a car.

1) Get off ridgetops. Avoid open meadows. Get off the lake or out of the water.

2) Never run for cover under a lone tree. A grove of trees of similar height is a better option. Be cognizant to not stand on top of tree roots.

3) Avoid direct contact with any metal or graphite objects that will conduct electrical current. Climbing gear, fishing poles, your bike, hiking poles, etc. Stash that stuff and get away from it while you wait it out.

4) If you are stuck in an exposed location, stay put and protect yourself from ground currents by standing still with both feet together. This can prevent the ground current from traveling up through your body.

Squatting down to get lower will provide little additional  protection, and it is a difficult position to hold for very long. Siting “Indian-style” is OK too, if inside a tent for instance. Sitting on an insulated pad will help keep you dry, but does not protect you insulate you from ground current. About all it will do is keep your butt from getting bruised if the ground current lifts you off the pad

5) If in a group, never huddle together. Spread out, 25 to 50 feet apart. That way when the grenade drops, fewer people in your party will be affected by the blast.

6) If all else fails, run like hell to get to a safer location, and hope whatever Thor is throwing down that day misses you by a wide margin.

Post by meteorologist Jim Woodmencey.

Portions of this post appeared in the Jackson Hole News & Guide on July 8, 2026.

All we have heard so far this spring is that we are in for a hot, dry, summer with a busy wildfire season expected over the next few months. As I look back at the last 20 years or so, that has pretty much been the outlook almost every summer here in Northwest Wyoming.

Will this summer somehow be uniquely different? Let’s look at the current outlooks for June, July, and August 2026 and break down what they might portend. Then look back at a similar historical situation to see how that panned out.

NOAA’s Outlook

The most recent Three-Month Outlook issued by NOAA on May 21, 2026, for this June, July, and August, shows Northwestern Wyoming is in the “Likely” category for above normal temperatures. The probability of that happening is listed at 50 to 60 percent. (Refer to the Outlook graphics included here).

Northwest Wyoming falls under the “Equal Chances” category for precipitation this summer. That does not mean we’ll have a “normal” amount of precipitation, as some people may perceive it. What it means is, there are equal chances of having above normal precipitation, below normal precipitation, or average precipitation. The probability of each one of those occurring is 33.3 percent.

To make it into either the above normal or below normal category, the probability of occurrence needs to be more than 33 percent. Southwest, Central, and Southeast Wyoming are leaning towards the above normal category for precipitation, with a 33 to 40 percent chance of precipitation being above normal this summer.

You could interpret this summer’s outlook from NOAA to mean that the weather, overall, for the next three months here in Jackson Hole will be warmer than normal. How much precipitation we might get is still a coin toss. But you’ll need a three-sided coin to decide the precipitation outlook.

How to read the Outlooks

Making these Three-Month Seasonal Outlooks involves a rather complicated methodology that NOAA uses to arrive at these probabilities. Here is the explanation from the Climate Prediction Center’s website:

“The contours on the map show the total probability (%) of three categories, above, indicated by the letter “A”, below, indicated by the letter “B”, and the middle category, indicated by the letter “N”. At any point on the map, the sum of the probabilities of these three categories is 100%.

For any particular location, and season, these three categories are defined from the 30 observations from 1981-2010. The coldest or driest 1/3 (10 years) define the B category, the warmest or wettest 1/3 (10 years) define the A category, and the remaining 10 years in between define the middle (N) category.

When the forecasters decide that one of the extreme categories, say above (A), is the most likely one, they assign probabilities which exceed 33.33% to that category, and label the map with an “A” in the center of the region of enhanced probabilities. To make it possible to display three categories on one map, we assume that, when either A, or B is the most likely category, the probability of the middle category remains at 33.33% for most situations. This means, for example, that when the probability of A (B) is 40%, the probability of N is 33.33%, and the probability of B (A) is 100% minus 40%+33.33%=26.67%.

When probability values of the favored category reaches 70%, or higher, the probability of the opposite category is fixed at 3.3%, and the probability of the middle category is adjusted to values (less than 33.33%) which cause the sum of the three probabilities to equal 100%.

When the middle category (N) is higher than 33.33%, the probabilities of the A and B categories decline by (equal) amounts required for the sum of the A, N, B probabilities to equal 100%.

In regions where the forecasters have no forecast tools which favor the chance of either A, or B, the chance of these two categories is defined to be 33.33% each, and the region is labeled “EC”, which stands for equal chances.

Shading is used to indicate different levels of probability above 33.33%.”

Compared with the Summer 2022

The last time we were in a similar situation most recently, with a low snowfall winter preceding the coming summer, was in 2022. The winter of 2021-22 had below normal snowfall in the mountains for December through March with only 241 inches, which was even less than this past winter’s 252 inches.

Town had a total of 54 inches of snowfall for December through March 2021-22, compared to 45 inches this past winter. However, the Winter of 2021-22 only had a total of 4.01 inches of precipitation with that snow, compared to 7.11 inches of precipitation in town from December through March 2025-26. The average winter precipitation in the Town of Jackson is 5.48 inches.

Add to that above average precipitation for April through May, another 3.48 inches combined, bringing the total precipitation for October 2025 through May 2026 up to 10.51 inches. That is 2 inches above the long term average of 8.52 inches for those 8 months. Maybe that is why the valley looks so green right now.

April and May of 2022 also had above average precipitation here in Jackson, leading into the summer months. So, what was the outlook for that coming Summer of 2022? You guessed it, “warmer and drier than normal” for Northwest Wyoming.

Here are the outlook maps from NOAA, from May 19th, 2022:

The NOAA Outlook for Summer 2022 had Northwestern Wyoming solidly in the “likely” to be above normal category for temperatures, in the 50 to 60 percent range. And for precipitation, it was forecast as “likely” to be below normal, in the 40 to 50 percent chance range.

What really happened in the Summer of 2022? Monthly average high temperatures were colder than normal for the summer. Average low temperatures were warmer than normal. Overall, the mean temperature for the summer was right at average. Not above average, nor below.

June 2022’s precipitation was near normal, July was way below normal, but August 2022 was well above normal due to a more active monsoon, creating the second wettest August in the Town of Jackson’s weather history. Jackson ended up with 5.26 inches of rain in June, July and August of 2022. That is 140 percent of the normal summer precipitation of 3.77 inches.

Sorry to say, but that summer’s outlook was a bust. That’s only one example, and I’m not saying this summer’s outlook will be a bust also. We’ll just have to wait until September to judge that.

To “Summerize”

How this summer plays out will depend on the weather patterns that develop, especially how strong the Desert Southwest Monsoon becomes later in July and August. And whether that monsoon moisture surges this far north often enough to bring significant precipitation, like it did in 2022.

With the monsoon, as with more typical summer thunderstorms, comes lightning. That will also be a factor in what kind of wildfire season we have. But keep in mind, only about 20 percent of wildfires in the United States are caused by lightning, the other 80 percent are human caused.

We can do our part in reducing the threat of wildfires by making sure your campfires this summer are dead out before you leave them unattended. Maybe even chose to forego the campfire in particularly dry places or at least be cognizant of sparks getting away from you when it is too windy.

No matter what the weather, get out and enjoy this summer, because they are typically pretty darn short here in Wyoming.

Jim is the chief meteorologist at mountainweather.com and has forecast the weather in Jackson Hole for the last 35 years.

Portions of this post appeared in the June 3rd, 2026 issue of the Jackson Hole News & Guide

Flip-flopping spring weather is perfectly normal. The weather in March this year was more like April. And April’s weather was like the March we should have had.

From warm and sunny days into the 70’s, to cold and snowy days with highs in the 30’s, April 2026 had something for every weather connoisseur’s tastes. In this week’s column I’ll look back at the ups and downs of the weather from this past month. Then I’ll  provide some insight into what the month of May might be like, weather-wise here in Jackson.

Temperature Roller Coaster

On the 16th of April 2026 Jackson came within one degree of the record for coldest maximum temperature on that date. It only reached a high of 34 degrees that day in town, the record for April 16th is 33 degrees from 1960.

Five days later, on April 21st, 2026, the high temperature was 72 degrees in town. That’s a 38-degree swing in temperature, in less than a week’s time. The next day, on April 22nd, the high temperature in town was 45 degrees, a 27-degree drop in one day.

On April 24th, 2026, the high temperature in Jackson was only 35 degrees, tying the record for that date, also from 1960. The next morning, April 25th, the low temperature in town was 12 degrees, which tied the record low temperature for that date from 1945.

The average high temperature this April was 50.8 degrees, more than a degree cooler than the long-term average of 52 degrees. The average low temperature for April 2026 ended up at 25.8 degrees, a little more than a degree warmer than the long-term average in April of 24 degrees.

Even with all that temperature fluctuation, the mean temperature for April 2026 was 38.3 degrees, very close to the long-term average of 38 degrees.

Rain and Snow

April 2026 almost made up for the deficit Jackson had for precipitation and snowfall in the month of March. March 2026 only had 0.32 inches of precipitation, whereas this April recorded 1.68 inches in town. That’s above the average precipitation for April of 1.22 inches.

March 2026 only recorded 2.5 inches of snowfall in town, but April 2026 recorded 6.5 inches. The average snowfall for April in Jackson is 4 inches.

Mountain Snow

Data from the Rendezvous Bowl weather station, at around the 9,600-foot elevation at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, only recorded 32 inches of snowfall in March of 2026. An average March would see 67 inches of snowfall.

April 2026 recorded 68 inches of snowfall for the month, an inch more that an average March. This April had nearly twice the average snowfall for April on the mountain, which is 35 inches at that location and elevation.

Also of note, the settled snow depth at Rendezvous Bowl on April 1st, 2026, was at 76 inches. At the end of the month, on April 30th, it was up to 88 inches. Which means there is still plenty of snow yet to melt at the higher elevations.

This is the snow, and the water contained in it, that the SnoTel network does not account for. Most of the SnoTel instruments for the Snake River Drainage are located below the 8,200-ft. elevation. The Two Ocean site is the only higher elevation SnoTel site, at 9,240-ft. and it was at 108% of the median Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) on May 1st, 2026. Blind Bull at 8,880-ft. was 101% of normal.

A note on mountain temperatures, they also had big swings. On the morning of  April 17th, 2026, the temperature at the top of the tram at around the 10,000-ft. elevation was 4°F. Four days later , on April 21st, 2026, the high temperature was 49°F.

May Weather to Come

I think I figured out why they call it the Month of May. It may be warm and sunny, or it may be cold and wet. That is May in a nutshell. To give you an idea of what it might be like, I’ll outline the historical averages, or what is considered “normal” for May, and what the extremes have been historically here in Jackson in Mays past.

May Temps

The long-term average high temperature in Jackson for the month of May is 63 degrees. That’s eleven degrees warmer than April’s average high. The average low temperature in May is 31 degrees, or 7 degrees warmer than April’s average low.

The record high temperature in Jackson in May is 90 degrees, set on May 29th, 2003. The record low temperature in town is 5 degrees, set on May 2nd, 1988.

Those are the extremes of temperature experienced here in Jackson in May.

May Precip

According to the long-term historical weather records, May is still considered the wettest month of the year in Jackson. Averaging 1.83 inches of precipitation. The record for precipitation in May is 6.02 inches, from 1980, which also qualified as the seconded wettest month in Jackson’s weather history, behind September 1924, which had 6.53 inches of precipitation. The driest May on record was in 1969, with only 0.13 inches of precip.

Jackson only averages about one inch of snowfall in May. But in May of 1942, Jackson received 14.5 inches of snow.

Don’t count on this May being close to average, count on it falling somewhere in-between the extremes.

The 30-day outlook for temperatures and precipitation for the month of May are shown below, for the USA, from NOAA.

Something I have mentioned many times over the last 30-plus years writing this column, “it is the extremes of weather that make our averages”. So, if you expect every month, every season, or every year to be close to normal here in western Wyoming, then you have been deceived. It is more likely our weather will be well outside of what we consider to be “normal”.

As Mark Twain once said, “Climate is what we expect, and weather is what we get”.

Jim is the chief meteorologist at mountainweather.com and has forecast the weather in Jackson Hole for the last 35 years.

Portions of this post appeared in the Jackson Hole News & Guide on May 6th, 2026.

I received an email asking me about a graph of Teton County, WY temperatures that appeared in an article from High Country News. The email was inquiring as to whether it matched the actual data from our local weather stations.

After briefly studying the graph (seen below), I realized that it was constructed from what I will call contrived data. Call it manipulated, manufactured, aggregated, homogenized, or whatever term you like, but it is not an honest representation of the actual data from the official weather observing stations in our region.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the graph shows data going all the way back to 1895. Fact is:  there isn’t a single COOP weather station in Teton County Wyoming that has any weather observations prior to 1905!

The data displayed in the graph above from NOAA, for average annual temperatures, does not coincide with the actual data from the long-term records from the Cooperative Weather Observing Stations (COOP) located throughout Teton County.

All of our local weather stations are missing entire months or even years of data, especially prior to the 1950’s. Those years should not be included on the graph, because you would be unable to calculate a truly representative annual mean temperature. 

Somehow, NOAA seems to be able to fill in the blanks, regardless of not having any real data to work with. I will explain how they do that bit of hoc-us-pocus at the end of this post.

A couple of other notes on the above graph: 1) The red “average” line that was added to the NOAA graph  is not an average line, but rather a linear “trend” line. The “median” line shown would be dividing the data set in half, with half of the numbers (years of data) falling below that line and half of them above that line.

A true representation of the average (or the “mean”) temperature for the whole time period would actually be 34.6 degrees. (I’ll provide that plot at the end of this post).

What follows here in this post are plots made from the raw data for the COOP weather stations in Teton County, WY, with some notes about each weather station’s instrumentation.

The Real Data

There are 5 COOP weather stations within Teton County, WY that have longer-term weather records, which are relatively consistent…. Jackson, Moose, Moran, Snake River, & Alta, WY.

There are three other COOP stations within the county… Darwin Ranch, Old Faithful, and Lake Yellowstone, not included here. Darwin’s records only go back as far as 1975. Old Faithful’s weather records prior to 1988 are essentially nonexistent. Lake Yellowstone’s records date back to 1905, but are very sporadic with huge gaps of missing years over the past 120 years.

I will provide the actual data for each of the five main COOP stations, so you can see the contrast between the real temperature observations reported to the NWS from these stations, and the data that you can retrieve from NOAA’s Climate website.

I chose a maximum of 30 missing days in a year as the threshold for calculating as accurately as possible the annual mean temperature. If any year was missing more than 30 days of observations, then it was excluded from the plot.

In other words, any given year that made the cut, could still be missing an entire month’s worth of data. In those cases, if the majority of missing days were in winter months, that year could have a warm bias. If the majority of missing days were in summer months, that year could have a cold bias.

Each station’s data will be displayed below in a graph, with a 5-year running mean (black line) overlay. Take that with a grain of salt for stations that have long stretches of missing years of data.

To see how many missing days there were for each year, I have provided a link to PDF’s for each station that contains a table of the missing days count for each year.

1) Jackson, WY Mean Annual Temperature graph:

Jackson’s earliest year with complete data is 1905, with a huge gap after that until the late 1930’s and into the 1940’s, and many other missing years after that in the 1990’s to early 2000’s. Jackson used Liquid-in-Glass (LIG) thermometers for daily readings until March 2002, when it changed to digital (MMTS).

Link to PDF of data: JACKSON

2) Moose, WY Mean Annual Temperature graph:

Moose data only goes back to 1959. Prior to that, from 1935 to 1959, the COOP station was located at Beaver Creek, near the Taggart Lake Trailhead. The Moose station moved short distances several times after 1959, until it was relocated to near the new Visitor Center in July 2018. It was at that time that the station switched from LIG to digital thermometers. The Moose weather station stopped taking temperature readings in early 2024 due to technical problems with the new instrumentation (Nimbus).

You can read more about the Moose station’s thermometer issues in a previous blog post: Temperatures & Thermometers

Link to PDF of data: MOOSE

3) Moran, WY Mean Annual Temperature graph:

Moran has the most continuous temperature record in Teton County, dating back to 1914. Unfortunately, its location was moved in 1954, from an open area near river level, to higher ground in a more wooded area. The biggest effect this had was on raising the overnight low temperatures. But, you can still see the jump on the annual average temperature graph that occurred in the mid-50’s, with temps relatively steady after that. Moran used LIG thermometers until May 1999, then switched to digital.

You can read more about Moran’s other thermometer issues in a previous Blog post:
Teton Park nights are warmer…

Link to PDF of data: MORAN

4) Snake River, WY Mean Annual Temperature graph:

The Snake River weather station is located at the South Gate of Yellowstone National Park. It’s earliest observations date back to 1906, but the first complete years of data were 1910 to 1913. Followed by a long stretch of missing years from 1915 to the early 1930’s. Other big chunks of time are missing after that. In September of 1998 it switched to digital (MMTS), and in 2018 switched again to a different type of automated digital thermometer (Nimbus).

Link to PDF of data: SNAKE RIVER

5) Alta, WY Mean Annual Temperature graph:

Located the West side of the Tetons, but still in Teton County, WY, the Alta weather station has it’s earliest readings in 1910, with intermittent observations for several years during the 1920’s, 1940’s, 1970’s, and a few in the early 2000’s. The Alta station switched from LIG to a digital thermometer in September 1986. In April 2017 it switched to a different type of digital thermometer (Nimbus).

Link to PDF of data: ALTA

The Hoc-us-Pocus

So, how does NOAA make their graph look like a continuous record, when we know it is not? They certainly must use all of the real data shown above, but how are they filling in the all the missing years, as well as going back in time to before any official weather observations were taken?

Here is an excerpt from their site explaining their methods:

“Traditionally, climate division values have been computed using the monthly values for all of the Cooperative Observer Network (COOP) stations in each division, which are then averaged to compute divisional monthly temperature and precipitation averages/totals. This is valid for values computed from 1931-2013. For the 1895-1930 period, statewide values were computed directly from stations within each state. Divisional values for this early period were computed using a regression technique against the statewide values (Guttman and Quayle, 1996).”

In other words, they fudged it.

You can get their full explanation of methods here: NCEI Climate Divisions

Follow the Trends

If you scroll back through the graphs of the real data and try to follow the 5-year running means (black lines) across the clustered time periods that have minimal missing data, then you can more clearly visualize that the peaks of the warmest temps are all within one or two degrees Fahrenheit.

JACKSON’S peak in the last 10 years is within a degree of the peaks in the 1950’s.

MOOSE’S latest peak is within 2 degrees of the peaks in the 1970’s. No data prior to 1959 and a major change in location and instrumentation in 2018. Again, you can read my analysis of that station’s data here:Temperatures & Thermometers

MORAN’S most recent peak is actually lower than peaks in the 1980’s & 90’s, and within a degree of peaks in the 1960’s. (As mentioned, prior to the mid-1950s, Moran’s weather station was in a different location).

SNAKE RIVER’S peak from the last 10 years is not significantly different from other peaks in its historical record, considering the scarcity of consistent historical data,

ALTA’S most recent peak is less than 1 degree Fahrenheit higher than the max peak in the 1960’s.

You can call that 1 to 2 degree Fahrenheit change “moderately” warmer instead of “slightly” warmer

One last thing you may not have considered is the change in instrumentation over the last 10 to 20 years or so, from LIG to Digital thermometers. Digital thermometers can register temperature changes more instantaneously than much slower LIG thermometers. For both maximum & minimum temps.

Another look at NOAA’s Data

For comparison, below is a graph of Annual Average (Mean) Temperature for Teton County, WY, which I generated from NOAA’s website: NCEI County Time Series

I also had NOAA’s site generate a mean temperature line for the whole time period, from 1895 -2025, which came out to be 34.6 degrees.

Caveat Emptor!

Bottom-line is, the data NOAA is using here is not a genuine representation of our long-term record of temperature,  to the extent it seems they are using data from well outside the Northwest Wyoming region to fill in the blanks. The Question is: from what part of Wyoming?

I perused all of the COOP weather stations in Western Wyoming and found that most had no data prior to 1949, like Big Piney, Bondurant, Pinedale. Afton had no data prior to 1958. There were others with some data earlier than that, extending all the way to Dubois, Cody & Riverton, which all reside east of the Continental Divide in Wyoming, but they also had numerous missing years of data.

As most of us know, weather and the climate varies widely across the state, from the Mountains to the Plains.

The NOAA graphs look very tidy and complete, but when you dig deeper, you realize much of that data is just made up. Especially the data prior to the 1950’s when there was essentially only one station in Teton County with consistent data, Moran, and that was when the thermometers were located at a lower elevation near the river, giving it a cold bias. (Again, here is what I wrote about the Moran weather station’s history: Teton Park nights are warmer…).

Factoring in changes in some station locations over the years, along with instrument changes in more recent years, it really makes analyzing the long-term record even more challenging. As a meteorologist, I am not one for accepting what is presented (especially from computer models) without further investigation and confirmation.

If I was not so intimately familiar with our local weather stations and climate records, I would never have suspected the NOAA graphs were as contrived as they are. Close maybe, but no cigar.

I am not disputing that temperatures now are slightly warmer or moderately warmer than in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, following the Little Ice Age — with the exception of  the 1930’s, which throughout most of the western U.S. were decidedly warmer than recent years.

Given what we know from actual historical weather observations, versus what is displayed on NOAA’s graphs, one must question the validity of the data they used, considering the scarcity of data available from the early 1900’s for Teton County.

As Robert Mallet said in the Manual of Scientific Inquiry, back in 1859:
“Nature, rightly questioned, never lies.”

Post by meteorologist Jim Woodmencey.

Jim is the chef meteorologist at MountainWeather.com and has forecast and written about Jackson’s weather for nearly 35 years, and has lived in Teton County, WY since 1982.

Jackson, Wyoming was not the only place in the West that experienced what was perhaps the weirdest winter ever. It wouldn’t matter if you have lived here only a few years or over 50 years, it was undoubtedly the weirdest due to the lack of snow in the valley and the unusually warm temperatures throughout the entire four winter months. To exemplify this winter, I will review Jackson’s weather data from December through March, and highlight all its uncommon stats.

Data presented for the Town of Jackson is from the Jackson Climate Station. Data for the mountains is from the Bridger-Teton National Forest Avalanche Center weather stations at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

Jackson Town Temps

December was warm, but it was not the warmest ever in the Town pf Jackson. The average high temperature in December 2026 was 11 degrees warmer than normal, at 38.3 degrees. That fell short of the record set back in 1933 of 39.3 degrees. The average low temperature in December 2025 was 14 degrees warmer than normal at 21.1 degrees, which was not as warm as December of 1917’s average low of 25 degrees. The mean temperature in December 2025 was 29.7 degrees, again, not as warm as it was in 1917, with a mean temp of 31.1 degrees.

January 2026’s temperatures ran a little closer to normal, with the average high, average low, and mean temperatures all running just a few degrees above the long-term averages. This January’s monthly mean temperature was 18.9 degrees, whereas the warmest January on record was in 1953 with a mean temp for the month of 30.2 degrees.

You can read more about how the first half of winter played out in this blog post:
Unusual 1st Half of Winter 2025-26

Things didn’t get much better for the second half of winter. In February 2026 temperatures ran about 8 to 10 degrees warmer than normal but did not qualify as the warmest February on record. That record still belongs to 1947.  The average high this February was 39.5 degrees, well short of the record 44.2 degrees from 1947. The average low in February 2026 was 17.1 degrees, also shy of the record of 20.1 degrees set in 1947. The mean temperature this February was 28 degrees, also well below the warmest February mean temperature on record of 32 degrees, from February 1947.

March was the real cooker though, and it deserves special acknowledgement.

March was more like April

March 2026 overall was about 10 to 12 degrees warmer than an average March, and it did break some maximum temperature records in town, but not by much. Starting with an average high temperature of 52.7 degrees in town this March, breaking the old record of 52.5 degrees from 1992, by just 2/10ths of a degree.

The average low temperature in March 2026 was 26.7 degrees, which was one-tenth of a degree cooler than the record warmest average minimum temperature of 26.8 degrees from March 2017.

The mean temperature for March 2026 was 39.7 degrees, beating the old record mean temperature from March of 1934 of 39.1 degrees, by six-tenths of a degree.

Relatively speaking, temperatures this past March were warmer than the average temperatures in Jackson for the month of April. The average high in April is 52 degrees, the average low is 24 degrees, and the mean temperature is 38 degrees.

On March 19th, 2026, Jackson hit 70 degrees, tying the record high for March of 70 degrees, set back on March 31st, 2004. On March 20th and 21st, 2026, the official town thermometer hit 71 degrees, establishing a new record high for the month of March.

The table below lists the monthly averages for Winter 2025-26 as compared to the historic averages.

Answering the question, “Was this the warmest winter on record in Jackson?”, is not as simple as you might think.

Looking at the temperature averages for all 4 months combined (December through March) I found too many winters that had incomplete data to support that assumption. In order to qualify, each winter month must have no more than 5 missing days of data. Prior to 2012-13, there were many winters which had 15 or more missing days. Some winters had entire months of data missing.

For example, in the Winter of 1933-34, December had the warmest maximum temperature on record, but too many low temperatures were missing to calculate a monthly mean temperature. During the winter of 1933-34 there were 45 total missing days of data in December through March, mostly low temperature readings in December and January, and there was no data at all for the entire month of February.

It would be safe to say that this December through March was the warmest in the last 14 years. Since 2012-13, all those winters had at most only 1 missing day of temperature readings.

Town Snow & Water

After three winters in a row with above average winter snowfall in the Town of Jackson, this is the first one that was below average, since 2021-22. Total Snowfall in town, for December 2025 through March 2026, was 45.4 inches. That is below the historic average for those four months of 62 inches.

What may surprise you is, this past winter did not have the least amount of snowfall ever in Jackson. December 2014 through March 2015 Jackson only had 43 inches of snowfall. Winter 2012-13 had 38.3 inches. The winter of 1976-77 only had 32 inches of snowfall. And two other winters checked in with a total snowfall less than this one, 1949-50 with 37.6 inches and 1946-47 with 35.6 inches.

What made this winter so bleak was, every time we got some snow in the valley, it either warmed up and melted, or it changed to rain and washed it all away.

The good news coming out of this winter though is that Jackson had a wetter than average winter. With a total of 7.11 inches of precipitation in town for the four months, compared to a historic average of 5.48 inches. It was also wetter than the previous winter, which had a water total of 6.40 inches in 2024-25.

Mountain Snow

The total snowfall this winter at the Rendezvous Bowl weather station near the 9,600-ft. elevation at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, for December 2025 through March 2026, was 252 inches. That is 81 percent of the historic average of 311 inches.

Last winter, from December 2024 through March 2025, Rendezvous Bowl had 365 inches of snowfall. In 2023-24 it had 359 inches, and 2022-23 had 443 inches. Winter 2021-22 had 241 inches of total snowfall, which is less than we had this winter.

The settled snow depth at the Rendezvous Bowl station on April 1st, 2026, was 76 inches. The historic average on that date is 104 inches. On April 1st, 2025, it was 114 inches. On April 1st, 2024, it was 116 inches. On April 1st, 2023, it was 137 inches. And on April 1st, 2022, the snow depth was at 71 inches.

As far as the records: April 1, 1997 had the deepest snow depth of the last 50 years, with 156 inches. April 1st, 1977 had the least with 60 inches.

By the way, following a storm during the first couple days of April 2026 the settled snow depth in Rendezvous Bowl was back up to 93 inches on April 3rd, 2026.

After three seasons in a row with colder temps and above average winter snowfall around Jackson Hole, in both the mountains and the valley, I guess you could say maybe we were due for a below average year. Let’s just hope we don’t get three in a row like this one.

Post by meteorologist Jim Woodmencey