Late March 2025 Climate Outlook
What’s Next for the Pacific Northwest?
El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO): Weak La Niña conditions are expected to transition to neutral conditions in the next month.
La Niña conditions continue to weaken driven in large part by warming sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Tropical Pacific. Winds and precipitation patterns in this region also demonstrate a trend toward neutral ENSO conditions. Although our region tends to continue to experience slight influence from La Niña conditions as we transition out of La Niña into neutral conditions, we are likely to see waining influence from ENSO on local conditions over the next few months. As we look toward the July-September 2025 period, ENSO models still show a slight favorability for either neutral or weak La Niña conditions, but no single ENSO phase has greater than 50% likelihood, indicating high uncertainty for the summer months and beyond.
What does this mean for Washington in the coming months?
Latest guidance from the CPC indicates slightly higher than normal precipitation and near-normal temperatures for the state for the month of April. Slightly better chances (40-50%) of wetter than normal conditions exist for the northwestern half of the state, while the southeastern half of the state has a 33-40% chance of above average precipitation. As for temperature, equal chances of above, near, and below normal conditions exist across the entire state. This is an indication of higher uncertainty in temperature anomalies as we transition out of La Niña.
The CPC’s 3-month outlook for April-May-June shows uncertainty in both precipitation and temperature. This is an indication of little agreement among climate models and no clear climate signals for the upcoming season. Therefore, there are equal chances of above, near, and below normal temperatures and precipitation across the state for April through June at this time.
