While heat ebbs and flows on the edges of heat dome, West remains under the record warmth through much of the rest of March

Mar 22, 2026

Another day, another insane record map from Coolwx.com. Saturday once again saw dozens of locations set all-time records for March from California to the Midwest. Three locations in California and Arizona reported high temperatures of 110F. State climatic records generally have to be validated by the State Climate Extremes Committee, but preliminarily 13 states from California to Minnesota have potentially set new state record warm maximum temperatures during this heatwave per Extreme Temperatures Around the World climatology site. Mexico as well is seeing many state and national monthly records, and as in the US, some temperatures are exceeding records for April or even May.

The record maps will become a little less extreme starting today, as a cold front will move south across the country east of the Rockies. However, as this low level (850 millibar) 10-day temperature anomaly animation shows, the abnormally warm conditions in the western United States will remain in place and continue to periodically strengthen and expand east. This will mean record warmth will be persistent across the western United States through the end of the month, and will periodically build east as well.

The continued warmth in the West all but guarantees that many climate sites here will easily set new records for the warmest March on record. Combined with already warm — and for many locations in the Southwest, dry — winter months, this means that snowpack will be in an abysmal state for most locations by the time we reach April 1st. Even the Sierra Nevada, which had a few huge snow events this winter, now has below normal snow water equivalent levels as snow continues to rapidly melt under this unprecedented March heatwave. For parts of the Southwest and Great Basin, snow cover is pretty much nil.

Flagstaff, AZ is an example of what is happening at higher elevations of this region. The average temperature for the first 3 weeks of March was 1.5F warmer than any other March on record. Flagstaff has reached or exceeded their previous March monthly record (73F) on five consecutive days, with a peak of 84F on Thursday shattering that old record by 11 degrees. The high temperatures on Thursday (84F) and Friday (83F) exceeded the all-time record high for April (80F).

You can also see in the table above that even though records at Flagstaff go back to 1898, five of the warmest ten periods have occurred in just the last 22 years. One of the “arguments” you hear against climate change is that temperature changes at urban heat island climate sites are the reason for the increase in the global temperature observed by climatologists — what we are seeing in higher elevations of the West (and other parts of the world) totally belies that.

All of this warm and dry weather is continuing to increase wildfire concerns, and today elevated to critical fire danger is anticipated in parts of the Southwest and Southern Plains.

A slight (level 2 of 5) risk of severe thunderstorms also exists today along the cold front dropping south through the Mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley regions. Damaging winds and large hail — including a few incidences of very large (2”+) hail — will be the primary risk with any severe storms today.

A quick update on the flooding in Hawai’i. As expected, the heaviest rainfall over the last 24 hours (map above) was focused in the central part of the islands, with additional flash flooding reported. Kahului, the main climate site on Mau’i, is now near 20” of rain for the month, setting a new record wettest month ever at this site that has records back to 1905. With lighter rainfall on O’ahu, the evacuation orders along the North Shore were lifted yesterday, allowing clean up efforts to begin.

Additional waves of thunderstorms with heavy rainfall are anticipated through Monday, particularly again for central parts of the island chain. Flood watches remain in effect for all of the state except Kaua’i.