Wild winds on the Plains today, along with fire risk as we look at how the Colorado River negotiations failed spectacularly

In brief: There’s some pretty high fire risk on the Plains today, as powerful winds impact the region, along with some mountain snow and snow near the Canadian border. Today, we also take a detailed look at how negotiations on a revised Colorado River compact failed spectacularly and what may come next.

A rollicking storm is going to push across the Western U.S. today, leading to a wide swath of gusty winds and high fire danger on parts of the Plains and in the West. High wind warnings and red flag warnings stretch from the Big Bend of Texas to the Bighorn Mountains in Montana.

NWS Watches and Warnings as of midday Tuesday. (Pivotal Weather)

Between precipitation in California and the interior West, the wind, and the fire risk, this one has it all. The wind gusts today are expected to be…..

Forecast maximum wind gusts today on the Plains. Some discontinuity exists between NWS forecast offices. (Pivotal Weather)

In addition to the winds, we are going to see some potential record warmth in the Central U.S., with much of Nebraska likely to push records well into the 70s. Even Abilene, Texas is expected to hit the mid-80s today, tying a daily record from the late 1800s.

High temperatures in Nebraska today will approach records. (Pivotal Weather)

Fire weather is defined as “extremely critical” in western Nebraska, northwest Kansas, and northeast Colorado today, a high-end day for this region.

Extremely critical fire risk in Nebraska, eastern Colorado, and western Kansas today. (NOAA SPC)

Overall, today is one of those days to be extra careful with flammable material risks.

Deadpool

There is big news regarding the Colorado River right now, and I will continue to insist this is the biggest story most folks outside the West are not hearing about. Valentine’s Day was the overtime deadline for the Upper and Lower Basin states to reach an agreement on modified water use, replacing the one that had been governing the Basin since 2007. The states had until November to reach an agreement, which was extended to this past weekend, and we’re still at a stalemate. To give you some perspective here, the states have been in negotiations for two years now, and we’re still not really getting anywhere.

Jonathan Thompson at The Land Desk lays out where we stand right now.

To call this a “crisis” is not hyperbole. Given the dreadfully low snowpack this winter in the Colorado Basin, with the upper basin running near record low levels and the timing of this arriving trainwreck, it’s very bad news. The Bureau of Reclamation believes Lake Powell is going to drop below the minimum power pool before the end of 2026, essentially dead pool. The problem right now is that the Upper Basin states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico) don’t want to take mandatory cuts in their water use. They contest that they’ve done enough, having dealt with water cuts in dry years because reservoirs do not serve them, they serve the Lower Basin states. Also, water users are smaller in the Upper Basin, so more work and effort is required to divert water than is the case in the Lower Basin, where you have large projects like the Central Arizona Project for example that can take smaller allocations. Read Jonathan’s article for more on how this all could play out and why the Upper Basin may be forced to do something or face litigation.

He also has a great “101,” a primer on the Colorado River here.

I have curated a list of books on Western water issues on a Bookshop affiliate site if you want to learn more about the long-term issues at play here.

The West and Water

Here’s some additional news from the national, upper, and lower basin perspectives on the revised compact negotiations failing.

Associated Press

Colorado Sun

AZ Central

tuscon.com

St. George, UT News

Los Angeles Times

High Country News

KSJD News

A lot more to come on this.

It’s not just the West. The Southeast needs some rain too

In brief: Drought conditions have worsened in the Southeast and Southern Plains in recent weeks. A chance of rain this weekend, especially in the Southeast should help matters a little, but much like in the West, more is needed.

Yesterday we focused on the West with an uptick in moisture incoming. Today, let’s focus on the Southeast. This area has become quite beleaguered by drought in recent weeks. Compare the drought map below for the Southeast from December 30th of last year to last week. Slight the bar to the right to see December 30th and to the left to see last week.

Drought coverage comparison from December 30, 2025 and February 3, 2026. (US Drought Monitor)

While coverage of drought has not changed a whole lot, the intensity of drought has gotten worse. Much of the Florida Panhandle is in extreme drought, as is the area near and south of Tampa. Portions of Georgia are also in this designation. As in the West, some things will change in the coming days. A storm system and cold front will propagate eastward this weekend, likely resulting in some locally heavy rain and thunderstorms for the region. There is even a chance that we could get some strong to severe storms as well. Of course, we’re coming up to the peak of Mardi Gras season in the South, so it’s a good idea to keep tabs on things this weekend.

The rainfall forecast over the next 7 days in the Southeast would help if it comes to fruition. (Pivotal Weather)

The hope is that we can get a solid 1 to 2 inches of rain out of this system this weekend. I would surmise that the areas most likely to see the most benefit would be in northern Georgia and possibly southeast Alabama. We could also see locally heavy rains in the Florida Panhandle that could help mitigate drought conditions some.

(NWS New Orleans)

Either way, any rain helps.

Drought conditions are not much better as you travel west, with places like Arkansas even seeing some exceptional drought, the worst of the worst.

Portions of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas are also seeing some pretty bad drought conditions. (US Drought Monitor)

Parts of the Big Bend region in Texas are also in that D4 designation. Much of south-central Texas is in extreme drought. But you can see elsewhere that conditions are somewhat blotchier, with pockets of extreme drought and limited drought in close proximity.

The La Niña situation this year has likely aided in keeping the South rather dry. With expectations of a shift to El Niño coming (more on that soon), we are hopefully going to see drought conditions ease up eventually here. But for now, rain is much appreciated.

Meanwhile, just to update the West, a series of storms continues to look likely from this weekend into much of next week. I count at least 3 individual systems on some of the operational model guidance right now, one just after Valentine’s Day, another on the 17th, and a third on the 19th. Whether all three come to fruition in full or not remains to be seen, but suffice to say, there remains a healthy chance at partially improved snowpack conditions in the West.

(NWS Reno)

We’ll keep tabs on things.

After a really dry start to 2026, the West will turn stormier over the next 10 days

In brief: After a long dry spell, there are signs of stormier weather in the West over the next 10 days. Mountain snow and low elevation rain is likely to add up some, helping to ease the deficit pain a bit but not enough to truly “salvage” winter at this point.

The dry West should moisten up a bit

It’s been a minute since we’ve shifted focus to the West. And for good reason: It’s been dead quiet.

Precipitation as a percentage of normal over the last 30 days has been meager at best in the entirety of the West, except for the coastal Olympic Peninsula. (High Plains Regional Climate Center)

This snow season has been wretched in the West too. While precipitation isn’t terribly far off normal for the season, the ratio of rain to snow events has been severe limiting any snowpack gains in the West. In fact, a look at the map of snow water equivalent by basin in the West paints a dire story right now, particularly as high stakes Colorado River water supply negotiations extend deeper into overtime.

Virtually every Western U.S. hydrologic basin is running below median for snow water equivalent at present, with most basins running 50% or less than median. (USDA)

That map is downright unsustainable in the current hydrologic environment of the West. So, help is needed, badly. Thankfully, some help is on the way. The first in what should be a series of storms arrives in California tonight. This system is less atmospheric river and more just a low pressure system that looks to stall out for a couple days. This is optimal, as it will bring mountain snow and lower elevation rain to much of the region, as well as at least some snow inland. Snow levels will be somewhat high-ish but you have to start somewhere.

(NWS Sacramento)

This should allow for 1-2 feet above 6,000 feet in the Sierra. Importantly, some of this snow will make into the interior mountains of Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming too, with perhaps 6 to 12 inches of snow at higher elevations.

(NWS Salt Lake City)

After this week’s system sort of washes out on Thursday, our attention will focus to a potential series of storms, more akin to a classic atmospheric river next week that should further add some snow and low elevation rain to the mix. Don’t sleep on the high winds outlined there either. We could be looking at some fire weather concerns in the Rockies or High Plains.

It looks busy in the West after this week. (NWS CPC)

The Climate Prediction Center’s 8-14 day hazards outlook has begun to paint the West more colorfully since Saturday. The heavy precipitation and heavy snow cards are being dealt for Feb 17-19 with the storm(s) next week. When all is said and done, we could be looking at 5 to 10 inches of liquid equivalent in California and 1 to 3 inches in portions of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and western Colorado. Anything would help. This won’t be enough to salvage the winter (we need more), but it will hopefully help pull back the extremes a little. Here’s hoping.

Editor’s Note: We’re still doing this

I have a recurring Google News search on that I get sent to my email daily for “flash flooding,” “flood mitigation,” and “hurricane Gulf” (in Google Scholar). So, I see a lot of news and information on flooding each week. One story caught my eye yesterday, and it makes me extraordinarily frustrated.

(Kaiser Health News)

The Unicoi County Hospital in Tennessee flooded so badly during Helene that patients and staff had to evacuate to the roof and be rescued by helicopter. The decision is being made to rebuild the hospital right in the flood plain of North Indian Creek, a location that may be even worse than where it was originally built. There are safe ways to do this to ensure flood impacts are mitigated, but unfortunately, Ballad Health did not offer comment for this article. This doesn’t make me angry because rural health systems struggle enough as it is, and it’s more important to offer those residents access to healthcare than it is to worry about everything else. Theoretically. But it frustrates me that organizations like this are being put in this position at all. Surely, there have to be many other, less flood prone locations to build this facility. When we talk about resiliency and building smartly, which we should be doing in 2026, no matter your belief structure on climate change, this is exactly what we don’t want to see happening. Risk is never zero, of course. But some risks are very clearly worse than others, and this decision feels as if it feeds into that idea. It’s hard enough for rural health systems to survive on a good day, let alone with elevated risk. They need help with ways to build smarter.

Coldest morning in over 35 years in parts of Florida, while the Carolinas dig out from a massive, challenging snowstorm

In brief: Today’s post recaps historic cold in Florida this morning and the snowstorm in the Carolinas yesterday. We also take a closer look at the Raleigh-Durham area specifically, which saw relatively little snow compared to the rest of North Carolina and why that happened.

Florida freeze & Carolina snow

Let’s talk first about Florida.

Morning lows in Florida, the Bahamas, and parts of the Southeast were very, very cold. (NOAA)

In Jacksonville, the temperature hit 22 degrees for the second time this winter (last seen on January 16th). The wind chill got as cold as 11 degrees there this morning for the first time since January 2014.

It was the coldest February morning on record in parts of Central Florida. (NWS Melbourne)

In Orlando, the morning low of 24 degrees was last seen on December 29, 2010 and prior to that Christmas Eve 1989. For Daytona Beach, the 23° morning low was coldest since Christmas 1989. This was also the coldest February morning on record there. Vero Beach and Sanford also had their coldest February mornings back to the 1940s or 1950s as well.

On the Gulf side it was not quite as cold, as Tampa hit 28° (coldest since 2010), Sarasota hit 36° (coldest since 2022), and Fort Myers bottomed out at 34° this morning (coldest since 2018).

Prior to today, numerous places in South Florida have not seen temperatures this cold since at least 2010, if not 1989. (NWS Miami)

The 30° low in West Palm Beach was the coldest since Christmas Day 1989. Wind chills got down to 20° as well.

For Miami, the morning low of 35° was the coldest since January 10, 2010, when they also hit 35 degrees. Prior to 2010, it last happened on January 21, 1985, when it was 34° in Miami. The wind chill of 26 degrees in Miami at 7 AM appears to be the first time that’s happened since the great cold outbreak of Christmas 1989.

For Key West it was only the 5th time in the last 10 years they’ve hit 52° or colder.

Overall, this was a top tier, borderline hall of fame cold outbreak for Florida.

Carolinas snow

Yesterday’s snowstorm was rather amazing for portions of the Carolinas, with some places seeing historic snow totals.

Observed snowfall across the Mid-Atlantic and Appalachia. (Pivotal Weather)

The highest totals I could find were near Faust, NC north of Asheville, where 22.5 inches fell and Peletier, NC, which is just inland from Emerald Isle and just west of Morehead City where 19.5 inches fell. 19 inches was reported near New Bern, NC in Olympia and in Reelsboro, just east of there. It would appear that this is the modern storm of record for portions of southeast North Carolina. New Bern’s previous snowstorm record was 15.5 inches in January 1965. Closer to Wilmington and Myrtle Beach, it was the largest snowstorm since 1989.

Farther inland, Charlotte’s 11.3 inches was the largest snowstorm there since 2004. 10.3 inches was measured in Greensboro, the largest snow there since December 2018.

The RDU snow desert

Interestingly, if you look back at the forecasts ahead of the storm, the Raleigh-Durham area was expected to see 8 to 12 inches of snow, roughly. In reality, they ended up closer to 2 to 5 inches. What the heck happened? In snowstorms like this, you often get these significant mesoscale type impacts that take place. In other words, it’s stuff happening at the small scale that causes outsized impacts.

Radar as of midday on Saturday showing two focused areas of snow, one near the coast and one well inland, leaving Raleigh high and dry. (College of DuPage)

What seems to have happened yesterday is that the Raleigh-Durham area ended up under a band of sinking air, or subsidence, in between two areas of rising air, one inland and one closer to the developing coastal storm itself. As these transitions to coastal storms happen, you’ll occasionally see that happen. This allowed for snow to accumulate more rapidly inland and near the developing storm before the storm blew up and dumped snow on everyone. There were hints of this in the modeling if you squinted hard enough, which is easy to do when you’re analyzing an event after the fact. But there was nothing clear cut that said the RDU area would be snow-deserted for so long. But if you look at the vertical velocity forecast from Saturday’s 12z NAM model, you can indeed see that basically happening.

Saturday’s 12z NAM model showing a double area of rising air and a gap in between indicating the possibility of a corridor of minimal snow totals in between two maxes. (Pivotal Weather)

You aren’t going to look at this and say, “Raleigh is going to get no snow,” but it does at least show a slightly better visual of the potential of a vertical velocity minima/subsidence in the atmosphere that would “gap” an area from seeing heavier snow. It’s not as if this was clearly defined or setup the day before. There were hints of something down toward Fayetteville or the Pee Dee in South Carolina on Friday morning. That shifted closer to the Triad with Friday afternoon’s model guidance. But you aren’t going to look at that alone and sketch a forecast that granular in nature and feel confident. It’s just the challenging nature of these snowstorms.