It’s the first day of spring, and Wyoming is celebrating with summer temperatures.
Thursday was a day of record-breaking high temperatures across Wyoming. Daytime highs ranged from the high 70s to the low 80s, breaking previous records in some areas by more than 10 degrees.
It was 72 degrees in Big Piney on Thursday. Not only did that break the previous March 19 record of 69 degrees set in 2015, but it was also the first 70-degree March day in Big Piney’s history, a threshold usually reached in early April.
Lake Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park reached 60 degrees on Thursday. That’s low, by comparison, but it was the first 60-degree March day in Lake Yellowstone’s documented history.
Wyoming wasn’t alone. Denver, Colorado, broke a 119-year-old record when it reached 85 degrees on Thursday, while Salt Lake City, Utah, reached 81 degrees, the earliest 80-degree day on record.
Friday will be just as warm, if not warmer. The persistent streak of record-breaking warm weather continues.
“It's an exclamation point on the winter season,” said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day. “It’s like setting a world record in the Olympics, only for the next guy up to break it. If you're going to get battered and bruised by the same thing all season, you might as well get battered and bruised by the same thing as we start spring.”
Back To The Block
The source of the summer temperatures on the first day of spring is another high-pressure ridge that’s blocking colder air and moisture from penetrating into the Rocky Mountain region. It’s the same situation that’s been plaguing Wyoming all winter.
“It’s a big area of high pressure across the southwestern U.S.,” said meteorologist Noah Myers with the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Riverton. “It’s blocking any weather systems from the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf of Mexico from getting into Wyoming, so we’re stuck with dry desert air.”
Myers said Friday and Saturday would be a lot like Thursday in terms of temperature. Maybe even warmer.
“Yesterday, we peaked in the low 80s east of the Continental Divide and the upper 70s west of the divide,” Myers said. “It’ll be similar today and tomorrow, but places like the Bighorn Basin could peak in the upper 80s, even closer to 90. I don’t believe we’ll see 90, but it could get close.”
90-degree days in March? Day doesn’t like using the word “unprecedented” when it comes to weather, but record-breaking temperatures, day after day, are a testament to how hot it’s gotten.
“To say this has never happened before is just not correct from a historical perspective,” he said. “But by setting these records, that’s certainly newsworthy and noteworthy. We’re going to be studying this season for many years to come.”
Ongoing Extremes
As Wyoming swelters into spring, Day keeps seeing the opposite elsewhere. He noted that, according to the NWS, there have been seven mornings this month with well-below-zero temperatures in Fairbanks, Alaska.
“Those mornings were minus 40 or colder,” he said. “Fairbanks hasn't seen that many minus 40s in March since 1942. It's been the winter of extremes across the country.”
For the United States, the 2025-2026 winter season was “a tale of two winters.” While the western states stayed desperately dry and warm, the eastern states experienced their own record-breaking season of snow and frigid temperatures.
Day compared the circumstances to Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comics. In his words, “Lucy keeps pulling away the football,” and Wyoming and the other western states are poor Charlie Browns.
“There's a lot of cold air up in the Arctic that's not going to go away anytime soon,” he said. “The current pattern is modeled to be going away and fading next week, which would allow us to get into April with more opportunities for it to get colder and wetter. But every time we saw that this winter, the blocks came back. Our models have failed.”
Myers said the record-breaking temperatures on Thursday didn’t just break many March records across central and western Wyoming. They would have broken many April records for the same places.
“Every one of our major climate sites broke the previous daily record by at least 7 degrees,” he said. “Lander’s records date back to 1891, and it beat the previous earliest report of 80 degrees by 23 days.”
No Short-Term Relief
Is there any relief on the horizon? Not in the short term, and that’s part of the persistent problem.
Day and Myers didn’t see any significant relief within the next 7 to 10 days. A small cold front will reach Wyoming when the current block breaks on Saturday night, but it’s not going to be strong enough to do much of anything.
“It's going to cool temperatures down for most of the state, but unfortunately, it's not a very wet cold front,” Myers said. “There will be a chance for some rain across northern Wyoming, but it’ll most likely be limited to the mountains. I don't have a whole lot of confidence that that is going to bring much relief.”
Beyond that, meteorologists have to rely on long-range weather modeling. After the winter we’ve had, they’re more skeptical than ever.
“I hesitate to put a lot of faith in the long-range models,” Day said. “Simply put, they’ve failed. I can't really look out past seven to 10 days, because we have to rely on those models beyond that.”
Hopeful And Skeptical
Despite Wyoming’s summer in March, no meteorologists are conceding to any worst-case scenarios yet.
March has been warm and dry, but the month hasn’t been a complete wash. Day noted that the first week of March brought much-needed moisture to southern Wyoming, the region that needed it most.
“March 2012 was really warm and even drier than this March,” he said. “That’s why I think the word ‘unprecedented’ is a little problematic, because we’ve been through this before.”
Myers also conceded that it’s “hard to say” what the next few weeks will bring. The NWS’s Climate Prediction Center is favoring above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation going into April, but that isn’t set in stone.
Still, these meteorologists think it's too early to get too worried.
“If we’re having the same conversation in May, then I'd be quite concerned,” he said. “Luckily, we still have a couple of months when we normally expect to see more precipitation.”
Day said the current high-pressure ridge is showing signs of fading away, which will give Wyoming a window of opportunity for cooler, moister weather going into April. That’s assuming another block doesn’t take its place, and after the winter we’ve had, anything’s possible.
“There's going to be a few little bumps along the road over the next week or so, but nothing significant,” he said. “All the pieces of the puzzle are together, but someone dropped the box on the floor, and they’re trying to put the pieces back together."
This hasn’t been a “normal” Wyoming winter, by any definition. But, from Day’s perspective, when is Wyoming’s weather ever normal?
“If you want normal, when the weather stays the same all the time, go to the equator,” he said. “At the mid-latitudes, especially the Rockies, you are susceptible to these things, and the record shows that. We just have to get past this block, so you could say I’m hopeful and skeptical at the same time.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
