Why is the Weather so Nice in the Winter Months?
By Rylee Altwine
“So how’s the weather?” We’ve all been asked this question before, or been around someone who has been asked this question. The weather has been insanely nice lately. But why is that?
Did you know that the cause of the warm weather that has been occurring in our area is due to an event that happened in the summer of 2025? According to westernslopenow.com, “The air got stuck between two broad pressure systems from the west and east, causing a standstill in the atmosphere.”
“We weren’t getting a whole lot of moisture moving through the area. The high pressure mostly over the western United States, all of those factors contributed to clear skies, sunny days, and just warming up over and over again,” meteorologist Braeden Winters with the National Weather Service states. “When December came around, we started to see it warm up, and all the way through the end of December, it’s just been getting way warmer than normal.”
The warm weather has been very nice lately. We are all able to get out of our house and enjoy some fresh air without having to bundle up from head to toe. It’s a nice change for all of us who live in Nebraska. We are unfamiliar with being able to do so much outdoors during the winter months. It seems to be a nice change for once.
Experts have been using the words “El Niño” and “La Niña” to describe the changes in the weather. El Niño is a natural climate pattern where the Pacific Ocean's surface water in central and eastern tropical regions warms up, causing weakening in trade winds, which shifts atmospheric circulation and leads to altered weather globally. La Niña is a climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean characterized by cooler-than-average surface waters in the equatorial Pacific, the opposite of El Niño.
According to cropwatch.unl.edu, “During El Niño events, the southern third of the U.S. usually experiences above normal moisture, while the Pacific Northwest is drier than normal and temperatures across the northern and central plains are warmer than normal.”
Due to the air getting stuck between the two broad pressure systems, the winter days have been very enjoyable. Being able to do activities that a person would normally do in the summer or spring is one thing we do not see very often in Nebraska.
