Rain, Wind, Heat: 2025 Weather in Review

December 2025 was a wild month for weather across Washington.

An atmospheric river dumped historic amounts of rainfall on northwest Washington in early December, leading to flooding, landslides, and power outages.  

A few days later, a windstorm swept across eastern Washington. Gusts of 83 miles per hour were recorded in Pullman, accompanied by an unusual winter thunderstorm. 

In this episode, Josh Ward and Jon Contezac discuss significant weather events of 2025. They are field meteorologists for Washington State University’s AgWeatherNet.

The past year was the third hottest on record for the planet. It was the fourth hottest on record for the United States. However, damage costs from extreme weather events were lower than previous years.

The year started with fires that razed 58-square miles around Los Angeles. Thirty-one people were killed and more than 16,000 structures burned during the January fires. Tornados killed 43 people in the central United States last year. 

In the Pacific Northwest, the Bear Gulch Fire in Olympic National Park burned from July to November. Meanwhile, an unusually warm fall and early winter has hampered the region’s snowpack accrual.

AgWeatherNet at Washington State University

Transcript

Washington State Magazine Podcast

Episode 44: 2025 Weather in Review

[00:00:00] Larry Clark:

December 2025 was a wild month for weather across Washington state. An atmospheric river dumped historic amounts of rainfall on northwest Washington. Powerful windstorms swept across eastern Washington, and the year overall brought its share of heat, fire, storms, and other notable weather events across the United States and the world.

(MUSIC PLAYS)

Welcome to the Washington State Magazine podcast. We connect you to Washington State University research and outreach. I’m Larry Clark, editor of the magazine.

In this episode, Josh Ward and Jon Contezac discuss significant weather events of 2025. They’re field meteorologists for Washington State University’s AgWeatherNet, and they’re talking with magazine science writer Becky Kramer about the LA wildfires, record heat, and other major weather stories from the past year.

Becky Kramer:

Josh and Jon, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:20] Josh Ward:
 Thank you for having us both.

[00:01:22] Jon Contezac:
I’m very excited to be here.

[00:01:26] Becky Kramer:
 Let’s start by talking about AgWeatherNet. Tell me what it is and what you each do there.

[00:01:34] Josh Ward:
 Sure. My name is Josh Ward. I’m one of the field meteorologists with WSU AgWeatherNet. AgWeatherNet is a statewide weather network partnered with WSU. We provide stakeholders and growers across the state with precise weather observations through roughly two hundred and thirty public weather stations.

Those observations feed our decision‑support tools, including tree fruit models, human health models, irrigation models, and more. My role involves installing and decommissioning weather stations, performing preventive maintenance, repairing stations and sensors, installing new sensors, troubleshooting communications, and applying quality‑assurance and quality‑control algorithms to make sure our data is as accurate as possible.

[00:02:47] Jon Contezac:
My name is Jon, and I do essentially the same things Josh does, but on the west side of the Cascades. I’m based in Mount Vernon and cover everything from the Canadian border down to Vancouver and from the Cascades out to the coast. Josh and our other field meteorologist, Nathan, handle everything east of the Cascades.

[00:03:14] Becky Kramer:
 Let’s talk about the weather worldwide last year. What really stands out?

[00:03:21] Josh Ward:
 Quite a lot, actually. 2025 was the world’s third hottest year on record. The two warmer years were 2022 and 2023, meaning three of the last five years have set global heat records.

In the United States, 2025 was the fourth hottest year on record. While that’s concerning, it was actually one of the better years recently in terms of billion‑dollar weather disasters. It had the lowest total of the past five years, though it still ranks sixth since the 1980s. Much of that has to do with continued urban development and population growth, particularly in the central United States, where severe thunderstorms are a major contributor to costly disasters.

Another factor may be increases in the frequency or severity of severe storms. A major example was the central U.S. tornado outbreak in 2025, which produced an estimated 182 tornadoes and became the second most costly weather disaster of the year.

It was the deadliest billion‑dollar disaster of the year, accounting for forty‑three deaths, compared to thirty deaths from the LA wildfires. In fact, the LA fires accounted for more than half of all billion‑dollar disaster costs in 2025. Without those fires, total disaster costs would have been well below average for the decade, especially since no major hurricanes made landfall that year.

[00:05:59] Becky Kramer:
 Let’s talk more about the LA fires. I was surprised they happened in January. Is that unusual?

[00:06:07] Jon Contezac:
January fires are unusual but not unheard of. California’s fire season typically runs from June through November, with winter normally being the wet season. What made this event possible were two very wet winters that led to significant fuel loading, followed by a very dry fall that extended fire season conditions into January.

On top of that, there was a strong Santa Ana wind event. High pressure inland drove winds over the mountains north of Los Angeles, warming and drying the air while increasing wind speeds. Under those conditions, fires can ignite and spread rapidly.

[00:07:24] Becky Kramer:
 It was startling to look back at the scale of the LA fires— 59-square miles burned and more than 16,000 homes and structures destroyed.

[00:07:32] Jon Contezac:
Yes. Those two fires were two of the three most destructive wildfires in California history.

[00:07:41] Becky Kramer:
 Let’s shift gears and talk about Washington’s weather in 2025. December was a pretty wild month for weather. Jon, can you talk about the flooding in western Washington?

[00:07:51] Jon Contezac:
Certainly. We experienced a major atmospheric river event in December that brought record flooding to parts of northwest Washington. An atmospheric river is a plume of moisture transported from the subtropics to the West Coast.

Leading into the event, the region had already received significant rainfall, saturating the ground. When the atmospheric river arrived, the additional rain couldn’t be absorbed and instead ran off into rivers. Three‑day rainfall totals ranged from three to six and a half inches, when typical daily totals are closer to one or two tenths of an inch.

The Skagit River crested shortly after midnight on December 12 at 37.73 feet, setting an all‑time record. Other rivers, including the Snohomish, Nooksack, and Cedar, also reached record levels. The rain damaged Highway 2 and triggered mudslides that closed Interstate 90.

[00:09:19] Becky Kramer:
 There was some concern about the WSU Research and Extension Center at Mount Vernon. Was it affected by the flooding?

[00:09:24] Jon Contezac:
Fortunately, we didn't see any flooding at the center. Though we did prepare for it. The center is in the 100-year flood basin, and as many people know, uh, warnings went out to evacuate the 100- year flood basin just in case.

Days before the river was set to crest, we ended up sandbagging much of the facility and moved some of our more expensive assets to higher ground.

[00:09:55] Becky Kramer:
 What kinds of things did you observe during that period of heavy rainfall?

[00:09:58] John Cantezak:
 We always see an increase in traffic. Um, we see a lot more media around the Skagit River. Everybody wants to see how high the river's going to get. The town itself took action. They implemented their flood system downtown to barricade against the river. There were some little leaks here and there, but for the most part it held, thankfully. Aside from that, we're watching the rainfall, and we're watching our weather stations to make sure the data's coming in.

Becky Kramer:

 Yeah, that sounds intense.

[00:10:32] Josh Ward:
 So while Western Washington received the brunt of the flooding, we still had some flooding here across the central Basin. Right here in Benton City, the river had risen so high that it flooded the river landing where you put the boat in. It was across the road. I haven't been here long enough to know if that's, happened in the past, but I would imagine that was a pretty extreme event.

A few days after the atmospheric river passed, I went to Spokane. I was just walking around downtown and the river runs through there. I have never seen that amount of water flowing through a river in my entire life. It was so much water.

[00:10:59] Becky Kramer:
 I was wondering if either of you might be able to talk about the fall. We had some unusually warm temperatures, in Pullman. I think that was true maybe across the state as well.

[00:11:07] Josh Ward:
 We were definitely having some above normal temperatures, this fall across Washington,  even into the early winter here. We've actually been experiencing several heat waves during the fall and early on this winter. Heat waves are often associated with the summer months, but they can happen any time of the year. So, the definition of a heat wave is abnormally warm temperatures for both overnight lows and daytime highs for more than 72 hours.

From an atmospheric perspective, the polar jet stream has been acting somewhat erratically. The jet stream has been hanging out just further north of us than usual, which is putting us on the warmer side of things. I think it was 48 or 50, maybe even more here in Prosser a couple of weeks ago. 

So these occasional high pressure systems that bring this warm central basin desert air from Nevada all the way up to Washington, we see this all the time in the summer, right?

But it is uncommon in the wintertime. Usually the jet stream pushes a little further south and we get these colder events and on average, a colder winter. But this year, it's just hanging further north.

[00:12:25] Becky Kramer:
 What does that mean for our snowpack?

[00:12:28] Josh Ward:
 I'm not a hydrologist by any stretch, but I believe it's pretty low, especially compared to the past couple years. We haven't seen that much snowfall across the Cascades this year, so far at least. Again, I'm not a hydrologist.

[00:12:47] Becky Kramer:
 Any other notable Washington weather from 2025?

[00:12:51] Josh Ward:
 Yes. Just this past December, we saw these crazy winds. Our weather station in Pullman recorded 82 mile an hour wind gusts. It was quite an event. At that time, we did have a jet streak right above Washington. A jet streak is this area of concentrated winds within the jet stream. We even saw some convection during this event, which really surprised to me. I was in the Tri-Cities and I remember the night because it woke me up at 3 am. It was thunder and lightning, and I was like, isn't it December? This isn’t supposed to be happening.

 It was caused by a number of factors. We had some abundant low level moisture from the light showers the week before, which is pretty common here across Washington in December. This was fueling the latent instability, the instability of the atmosphere caused by the release of latent heat.

In other words, condensation. So when we have a phase change from one to another, it releases latent heat and this actually helps fuel thunderstorms. It's very similar to what growers do actually for frost mitigation. They turn on their sprinklers, and then when that phase change happens from liquid to solid, it releases latent heat across the orchard and keeps temperatures above freezing. So same concept just in the atmosphere.

Becky Kramer:

And Jon, was there anything else that stood out to you about Washington’s weather in Washington in 2025?

[00:13:33] Jon Contezac:
Well, we did have a fairly large wildfire that occurred in Olympic National Park. It was named the Bear Creek Fire. It started on July 6 on the north side of Lake Cushman, and it was a human sparked fire that burned through very steep terrain. When it comes to wildfires, there’s what we call the fire behavior triangle. It's based on weather, fuels, and terrain. In this case, terrain was the primary factor that enabled the fire to burn more than 20,000 acres in Olympic National Park. 

It was one of the largest wildfires in the Olympic Peninsula since 1951. And it took firefighters until November 12 to fully contain that fire.

[00:14:06] Becky Kramer:
 I was going to wrap up by asking how can people sign up for AgWeatherNet’s weekly weather summaries?

[00:14:11] Jon Contezac:
They can go to our website. It's weather@wsu.edu. If you create an account, you can go into your settings and turn on the AgWeatherNet outlook. You’ll receive an email from us just about every week. 

[00:14:26] Becky Kramer:
 And you have a new app available in Spanish?

[00:14:30] Josh Ward:
 Yes, it's available in both English and Spanish. You can select up to five favorite stations to have on your home screen page. And you'll see real-time data coming from those weather stations. You can also select any weather station across our network, and you'll see the real time data. I imagine users will be using this for air quality, particularly in the summertime. I know I will be.

We are also planning to launch a redesign of our website this year as well. So be on the lookout.

[00:15:01] Becky Kramer:
 Thank you so much for talking with me today.

[00:15:05] Jon Contezac:
Thanks for having us.

[00:15:07] Josh Ward:
 I really enjoyed it.

[00:15:10] Larry Clark:
 Thanks for listening. You can hear more WSU stories at magazine.wsu.edu/podcast.

We’d love your podcast ideas, and please share the show and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

This episode was produced by me, Larry Clark, and Becky Kramer.
 Our music is by WSU emeritus music professor and composer Greg Yasinitsky.

[00:15:40] (MUSIC PLAYS)