While the official records for winter 2025-2026 are not yet in, unofficially this is one of the warmest winters for the United States on record. For those in the eastern third of the country, it probably did not feel like it considering the repeated advances of cold air into the region, bringing in snowy and icy weather to that area (you can read more about this at my blog post at the Garden Professors at https://gardenprofessors.com/frightful-weather-snow-ice-and-the-polar-vortex/). But the cold in the East was far outweighed by the very warm temperatures in the western 2/3 of the Lower 48 States. Overall, the final tally is expected to show that the past winter was one of the warmest ever in the US. There is a nice discussion of this in the Balanced Weather blog at https://balancedweather.com/2026/03/01/climatological-winter-ends-in-the-us-as-one-of-the-warmest-on-record/.
