March has frequently been a month of weather extremes. As winter transitions to spring, contrasting air masses clash within an atmospheric battleground of low-pressure systems and a powerful jet stream. In the past, the month’s notorious unpredictability has earned it a place in popular folklore characterized by catchy proverbs like “in like a lion, out like a lamb” and cautioned against by the famous warnings of Julius Caesar, urging to “Beware the Ides of March.” However, this past month was especially harsh, even by March standards, with heavy storms, blizzards, flooding, and a heatwave so intense that the NOAA deemed it the most abnormally hot month in 132 years. The extreme weather events surpassed all expectations, superstitions, or lore, and the consequences will extend beyond just 28 calendar days.
So why is this March particularly devastating? Why was the geographic scope of this devastation so far-reaching? How can it be that the Southwest set dangerous all-time heat records while the Upper Midwest received heavy, damaging snow? The answer: climate change.
The Weather Channel reported the western U.S. experienced temperatures surging 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above average. Meanwhile, several Eastern areas experienced “weather whiplash,” transitioning from historically warm weather to cold, snowy conditions in a short period with record-setting temperature drops. And on top of it all, the Hawaiian Islands were struck by a series of Kona low storms, which triggered severe flooding, landslides, and power outages. As more than two trillion gallons of rainfall pummeled the islands, some areas recorded 14-day totals as much as 3,000% above normal for this time of year, according to data collected by the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Hawaii Mesonet and Hawaii Climate Data Portal.
Roughly half a century ago, scientists began estimating that climate change would result in more intense weather patterns, and now the cautioned effects are well underway.
Carbon Brief, a website reporting the latest climate science developments, mapped over 600 published studies and found that overall, extreme weather events have increased over the past 10 to 15 years. 74% of almost 800 events analyzed were made more likely or severe due to climate change, with scientists stating that multiple events were “virtually impossible without human influence on global temperatures.”
Increasingly, intense global weather phenomena have moved beyond scientific theory or researched projections; today, communities are experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand. Extreme weather events are becoming frequent enough to be widely observed and affect lives on a global scale. While some areas suffer unprecedented weather patterns, low-lying islands like Hawaii face major storms that threaten loss of land and livelihood. Regardless of the amount of emissions a region may produce, climate change is a looming global crisis with major reverberating effects, especially in regions with low adaptive capacities, wealth inequality, and predispositions to hazards, as in the case of Hawaii’s floods.
The Kona low storms had an unrivaled magnitude that the islands have not seen in 20 years, with an estimated $1 billion in damage, according to a press conference delivered by Hawaii Governor Josh Green. The cause of this intense, unpredictable weather was climate change, further enhanced by Hawaii’s vulnerability, with its low-lying topography, isolated location, and high dependency on fragile ecosystems. In response to the storms, Green requested a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration on March 24 from President Donald Trump to reimburse a significant share of eligible recovery costs, according to the Office of the Governor’s press release. Without federal assistance, damage report dashboards by Hawaii’s Department of Emergency Management found that Hawaii residents are likely to struggle with infrastructure repair costs and individual assistance, with 1,074 properties reported as damaged or temporarily inaccessible.
Hawaii is facing one of the most substantial damage assessments following March’s volatility, but it’s not unique in requiring federal assistance due to extreme weather. Oklahoma, Texas, South Dakota, and Nebraska also requested federal emergency aid the same month, following a series of widespread wildfires, and were provided Fire Management Assistance Grants. The fires, the Boston Globe reported, were worsened by unseasonably hot and dry conditions linked to climate change, consistent with increasing wildfire frequency and a lengthening season.
Citing a recently released report about climate change in Nebraska, state climatologist Deborah Bathke said the changes are “expected to continue through the end of the century.” The Climate Prediction Center’s 2026 outlook confirms Bathke’s statement, warning that record-low snowpack, premature snowmelt in basins like the Colorado River, and high temperatures will cause drought to persist in the West and develop in the Great Plains.
Additionally, in March, winter storms and emergency declarations remained active and relevant for 12 states requesting funding for debris removal and emergency protective measures. In response, the Department of Homeland Security reported President Trump approved a “historic amount” of emergency declarations to supplement state-led response activities. Prior to the winter storms, Trump downplayed global warming in a Truth Social post and said the colder weather was evidence that the atmosphere was not heating up. Regardless of the president’s claims, experts continue to point to climate change as the underlying cause, cautioning against denialists conflating short-term weather trends with long-term climate changes. The storms were a product of rapid Arctic warming and disruptions to the stratospheric polar vortex, as a warmer atmosphere carries more moisture, leading to more snowfall and extreme precipitation. As the climate changes, the path to a warmer world is not entirely linear, and the unprecedented winter storms display how volatile the climate is becoming.
March is notorious for bringing with it abnormal conditions, but these extremes go beyond the natural seasonal cycle. The historical warnings of Julius Caesar and cautionary proverbs, which attempt to explain unpredictable weather patterns, did not influence the slew of heat waves, storms, flooding, and resulting emergency declarations. And no supernatural Roman time curse or Scottish superstition on March’s feared “borrowed days” from April was at play. The intense weather patterns experienced widely in just March 2026 are representative of future climate patterns as a whole. And scientists warn these events, driven by long-term climate change, will only make extremes far more likely.
March 2026 has already been deemed “one of the most astonishing weather events of the century” by Yale Climate Connections, specifically in reference to the extreme western heat waves. But the “extreme” events are no outliers; they are instead a recurring feature of a warming world and tangible evidence of climate change effects in real-time. The publication contextualized their ranking of the month as not a peak, but a glimpse into the “new normal,” recognizing that the event is not singular, but rather reflective of climate change as a whole.
Sources:
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