Dreaming of a white Christmas?
Wunderground’s “meteorologists qualify a white Christmas as one with at least an inch of snow on the ground [SOG] on Christmas morning,” (Hayden Marshall and Jonathan Erdman, “News & Blogs: The Weirdest White Christmases We’ve Seen In The US, And Who Could Wake Up To One In 2025,” Dec. 18) Three of Ouray’s last five Christmases make the SOG cut: 2020, 9 inches; 2021, 1 inch; 2023, 2 inches. 2022 and 2024 had only a trace of snow.
Two of Ridgway’s last five Christmases made the SOG cut. One featured deep snow: 2020, 13 inches. Another, 2023, 2 inches. Three — 2021, 2022 and 2024 — had a trace.
2025 has been weirdly warm and uncomfortably dry.
On Jan. 4, Ouray set its first maximum high temperature record of the year, 52 degrees. Three weeks later, the weather whipsaw turned cold for a couple of weeks — with a minus 7 degree morning and a 10-degree minimum high record for Jan. 21. January’s snow totaled 27.2 inches, 98% of normal, 27.7. It ended 4.8 degrees colder than average day and night, the only below normal month in 2025.
Ridgway also set its first max high temperature record Jan. 4, 58 degrees.
The monthly low was minus 21 on Jan. 21. Snowfall was 10 inches, 74% of normal, 13.6. Days were 5.2 degrees below normal, nights 5.7 degrees below.
Two weeks later, Feb. 4, Ridgway’s high, 67 degrees, and Ouray’s high, 64 degrees, were the second 2025 max highs. Ridgway set a third on April 13, 80 degrees, a fourth on Aug. 22, 97 degrees. Ouray set a third max high Aug. 22, 90 degrees.
Ouray set max temperature records on Dec. 20 and 22: 62 degrees both days.
Normal is 36.3. Ridgway set consecutive max high records Saturday through Tuesday: 64, 58, 62 and 65 degrees. Normal is 39.9.
Meteorological fall (September, October, November) was unusually warm.
Ridgway’s mean max temperature, 66.8 degrees, set a record. Ouray’s mean max temperature was 61.7. The 1950 record, 64.1 degrees, stood.
Ouray’s 2025 mean max temperature is 59.5, tied for fourth warmest. 1954’s mean max, 60.7 degrees, holds the record. Ridgway’s 2025 mean max temperature is 64.8 degrees, a record.
Yearly precipitation and snow totals are below normal for both municipalities. Ouray’s precipitation is 17.78 inches, 74% of normal, 24.07. Ridgway’s precipitation is 12.46 inches, 79% of normal, 15.71.
Ouray set a max daily precipitation record June 3, 1.07 inches. The month ended with 1.98 inches. June, normally the driest month of the year, averages 0.97 inches. Three months — February, 1.03 inches; May, 0.71 inches; and July, 0.77 inches — were drier.
Total snowfall for Ouray is 126.4 inches, 73% of normal, 173.4. (This includes 25.6 inches of snow, Dec. 1-4.) Total snowfall for Ridgway is 49.8 inches, 65% of normal, 76.4.
Nov. 24 set a record for the latest first measurable fall snow in both municipalities. Ouray had 1.5 inches, eclipsing the record set Nov. 23, 2003, 10.1 inches.
Ridgway had 0.8 inches, eclipsing the record set Nov. 23, 1999, 5 inches.
Another weird weather twist is coming: “A large, very wet atmospheric river that has inundated southern California is poised to move in Thursday and Friday, with rain turning to snow … expect a warm, wet, and cloudy Christmas Day with slippery to hazardous travel over mountain passes.” (Area Forecast Discussion, National Weather Service Grand Junction, CO, Dec. 22.)
January and February 2026 look warm. The Climate Prediction Center “is leaning toward above normal temperatures for most of eastern Utah and western Colorado, with a 33-40% chance … (and) equal chance of above or below normal precipitation (33-40%).”
The White House recently announced “plans to break up a key weather and climate research center in Colorado, a move experts say could jeopardize the accuracy of forecasting and prediction systems.” (Scott Neuman, “Scientists push back on Trump plan to break up a critical climate and weather center,” npr.org, Dec. 19)
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, calling NCAR “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
Six decades ago, NCAR began studying climate and weather, which “cannot be understood separately,” “according to Antonio Busalacchi, who heads the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of 129 U.S. universities that oversees the Boulder facility.”
NCAR develops and maintains tools like “the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF), which is used around the world to predict everything from thunderstorms to large-scale systems, including hurricanes and frontal systems,” Neuman notes. “In the 1980s, the center helped develop and refine technology to monitor wind shear at airports. Busalacchi says these efforts have contributed to decades without passenger plane crashes caused by wind shear or downbursts.”
“In the falling quiet there was no sky or earth, only snow lifting in the wind, frosting the window glass, chilling the rooms, deadening and hushing the city.”
— Truman Capote
Karen Risch gardens, records weather for NOAA and C0CoRahs, writes and hikes in Ouray. Her Wunderground weather station ID is KCOOURAY3, transmitting weather from latitude N381’34”, longitude W107 40’21”, Elevation 7,736’. A purpleair.com air quality monitor RISCH operates at the same location.
