The Climate Change Impact on Winter and the Outlook for the Upcoming 2025-'26 Season
As autumn now rapidly fades with winter creeping in some of you may find yourself reflecting on how much the up coming season has changed over the past few decades. While major snowstorms and brutal cold air outbreaks used to be the defining characteristics of winter in upstate New York and western New England, the reality today is those signature mainstays of the season don’t happen as much or are as severe as they they used to be.
Winters on average are warmer now, even the colder ones like last year (2024-‘25,) with the warming trend unmistakable. Across the region, average winter temperatures have steadily risen altering the very rhythm of the season. These shifts, driven by the undeniable forces of climate change, are more than just a statistical anomaly, they’re slowly reshaping how we experience winter, from snowfall patterns to the very way we prepare for the cold months ahead.
In fact, up until last winter (2024-‘25,) the the previous nine consecutive winters (since the winter of 2014-‘15) were warmer than average with winter 2023-‘24 the warmest on record to date at Albany with a three month (December, January, February) average temperature of 33.8 degrees F, eclipsing the 2015-2016 winter which was the previous warmest on record with a three month mean temperature of 33.4 degrees F.
Top five warmest winters on record to date at the Albany Airport climate reporting site
Last winter (2024-‘25) came in cooler than the 1991-2020 thirty average by 1 degree. It’s important to recognize, however, that the thirty year climate normal data set is used to gauge conditions in the current climate and not so much a tool to show the impacts of climate change, although the warming climate does factor into it. For perspective, if we compared winter 2024-‘25 to the 1981-2010 thirty year climate normals, it would actually have come in warmer than average by 0.6 degrees at Albany because our average winter temperature in that thirty year period was lower than it is in the current thirty year period. Of the 151 winter seasons on record at Albany, 92 of them came in colder than last winter putting last season’s chill in a broader climate perspective following a trend of colder seasons trending less cold over time.
Episodes of extreme winter cold have also diminished with the cold snaps that do occur, in addition to being of shorter duration on average, but also being much less cold. The last time the temperature dropped to -20 degrees F or lower at Albany was January 27, 1994 with a minimum temperature that day of -23 degrees. Since then double digit below zero nights in the Capital Region during the winter have become far fewer. In fact last winter (2024-25) the temperature dropped to 0 degrees or lower on only 6 days and in the previous winter of 2023-‘24, no zero degree or lower days occurred, only the eighth season on record at Albany where that’s happened. Of the eight, six of the no zero degree day years have all occurred since 2000, which is a telling signal of our rapidly warming climate in recent years.
Years at Albany with no zero degree or lower temperatures
Today, we typically have 21 more days in the winter that are warmer than average at Albany than we did in 1970 with winter 2023-2024 setting the record for the most to date with 69 of winter’s 92 days coming in warmer than the thirty year average.
Climate Central — Warmer than average winter days in the Capital Region increasing over time
Overall, according to research done by Climate Central, winters are now 6.6 degrees F warmer on average in the Capital Region than winters were in the early ’70s, with winter temperatures in most other Midwest and Northeast cities experiencing rapid cold season warming as well. A few examples include the following:
- +8.1 degrees F at Burlington, VT
- +7.3 degrees F at Milwaukee, WI
- +7.0 degrees F at Green Bay, WI
- +6.7 degrees F at Concord, NH
- +6.7 degrees F at Toledo, OH
Climate Central — Winters are warming over time in the Capital Region
So the warming is not just local, its both regional and national, with winter warming occurring in all parts of the country. In fact, winter is the fastest warming season for the majority of the country.
Climate Central — Winter warming across the United States over time
The Upcoming 2025-2026 Winter and the Players That Could Influence The Season
Climate change is certainly now part of the outlook for any season as a background driver pushing probabilities in favor of warmer than average. But a key to figuring out how an upcoming season as a whole could go, and specifically this winter’s months of December, January, and February, is to determine if any climate driving features could emerge that could overpower the background warming resulting in colder than typical conditions.
But to start we first need a baseline to make a comparison and for that we look at the seasonal averages. The chart below illustrates what’s average in the Capital Region for a winter season with the current 1991-2020 thirty year climate normal data set compared to the previous 1981-2010 data set.
Winter season thirty year average comparison at Albany
And this is the 1991-2020 “Normal” cold season snowfall for Albany broken down by month. In an average season, Albany will come in with about 59” of snow.
1991-2020 thirty year average cold season snowfall by month at Albany
The 2025-2026 winter season, at least the start of it, will be influenced by a weak La Nina (cooler than average sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific ocean.) La Nina conditions began in September 2025 and are expected to continue into January 2026 before fading out with ENSO-neutral conditions developing later in January and continuing through February and March. With the La Nina being weak and likely fading early in the winter, its overall influence could be significantly muted which means the conceptual model of La Nina winters (shown in the image below) may not strongly apply to this season. This adds considerable uncertainty to the forecast.
Conceptual Average La Nina North American Winter Weather Pattern
Typically La Nina winters favor high weather variability with frequent clipper type storms rolling through, many moisture starved, dropping generally light precipitation amounts, with storms on a more southern route producing moderate snowfalls. Temperature conditions frequently change from cold to moderate with no single cold or warm weather pattern getting locked in for long. The frequent weather changes also tends to support lots of windy days, which was the case last winter (2024-‘25.)
In last year’s case, a weak La Nina developed after December with the storm track by February looking very much like a typical La Nina pattern with a fast and progressive flow from the Southwest into the Northeast which resulted in numerous storms rolling through and lots of wind. With the La Nina in progress going into this season, I would expect a similar type active pattern (shown in the image below) to exist through at least December with frequent smaller storms or frontal passages and quick installments of cold air. Lake effect snow is highly favored in this type of a pattern with regional snow more muted.
The mean storm track through February 2025
Another climate driver to look at is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) currently in a strong negative phase which began in 2019-2020, with this phase expected to persist through the upcoming 2025-‘26 winter.
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is defined as a large scale climate variability in sea surface temperatures in the northern Pacific Ocean above 20 degrees north latitude. Like the ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation,) the PDO has both a warm and cool phase characterized by sea surface temperatures either being above normal or below normal, respectively, along the north American west coast into the gulf of Alaska. Unlike the ENSO, which tends to switch phases every 2-7 years, the PDO can remain in one phase for as long as 20-30 years, although there has been quite a bit of variability lately with short term phase shifts occurring on 1-5 year intervals.
In general, during the cool, or negative phase of the PDO, cooler than average sea surface temperatures exist along the North American Pacific coast which tends to lead to cooler than average winters in the western United States and warmer winters in the east with the opposite true during the PDO’s warm or positive phase.
When the cool phase of the PDO occurs in a La Nina winter, the effect of eastern warming can be enhanced, although with the La Nina expected to fade this season, the impacts of the PDO could be muted, especially considering there is a marine heat wave in progress across a large part of the north central and eastern Pacific to the California coast. Warmer than typical sea surfaces temperatures in this region could help to boost high pressure aloft off or over the west coast which would favor a mean cold low pressure trough across the east. Should that occur the pattern would favor more cold air episodes versus mild for us. But it’s nowhere near clear if the warm sea surface temperature anomalies are significant enough to have that impact.
Climate Reanalyzer November 19, 2025 — Sea Surface Temperature anomalies from the 1971-2000 baseline average
The Forecast
With the main climate driver signals going into the season weak and mixed, uncertainty for the upcoming winter is high in terms of where both temperature and precipitation (snowfall) will land for us here in the Northeast. The weak La Nina, coupled with a pattern in November already supportive of sustained colder air intrusions, argues for both an active clipper type storm track through or near us from December into January and chillier than average conditions. After that, there are no strong signals either way as to how the storm track could evolve and where temperatures will land.
In the end, how this winter plays out will likely be controlled more by the shorter term predictability players which include the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO,) Arctic Oscillation (AO) and how the stratospheric polar vortex behaves. My lean, however, is for another winter with somewhat cooler than average temperatures overall, but not extreme. But colder does not always mean more snow, as was the case last year (2024-‘25) with 43.9” of total snow at Albany, which was about 15” below average. Lake and mountain effect areas will likely have a good snow season, but snowfall amounts are questionable elsewhere and will be highly sensitive to storm track.
The Climate Prediction Center is looking at the weak La Nina as the main climate driver signal for their probabilistic winter temperature and precipitation forecast, which is an average of the months of December, January and February. For temperature, the forecast shows a slight lean toward warmer than average for the mid Hudson valley and southern New England but equal chances for any outcome, colder, warmer, or average, for the rest of our area.
For precipitation, there are no strong signals to indicate any one outcome, drier, wetter, or average, having any advantage over the other. So the precipitation forecast is for equal chances for any outcome to occur across the Northeast.
Climate Prediction Center — Winter 2025-‘26 (December, January, February) Probabilistic Temperature Outlook issued November 20, 2025
Climate Prediction Center — Winter 2025-‘26 (December, January, February) Probabilistic Precipitation Outlook issued November 20, 2025