From Floods to 90s: California’s Winter Whiplash Shows the New Extremes

The air in downtown Los Angeles felt more like July than February as the temperature climbed to 91 degrees Friday afternoon, sending office workers in shirtsleeves in search of shade and iced coffee.

On paper, it was still winter. On the streets, sandbags from last week’s flooding still lined storefronts, and flood stains were visible on the base of stucco walls. In the Sierra Nevada, recovery crews had only just finished retrieving the last bodies from a deadly avalanche near Lake Tahoe.

Over little more than a week, California’s winter lurched from a powerful Pacific storm that flooded neighborhoods and triggered the nation’s deadliest avalanche in more than four decades to record‑breaking heat that left parts of Southern California sweltering in the 90s.

Meteorologists say the sequence — flood, avalanche, then furnace‑like warmth — is a vivid example of how a warming climate is reshaping winter in the American West, not by eliminating storms but by intensifying extremes and stacking hazards closer together.

A stormy Presidents Day weekend

A storm described by the National Weather Service as “unusually hazardous” swept into Southern California around Presidents Day, from Feb. 15 to 18. Thunderstorms forced a ground stop at Los Angeles International Airport on Feb. 16, snarling flights as rain pounded runways and lightning lit up the sky.

The weather service issued flash flood warnings for wide swaths of Los Angeles County, including Los Angeles, Glendale and Pasadena, warning of “torrential rainfall” and “dangerous flash flooding” in urban areas and near recent wildfire burn scars. County officials urged residents in vulnerable canyon communities to prepare to leave if mud and debris flows threatened homes.

Farther downslope, the deluge inundated streets and seeped into ground‑floor businesses. In Koreatown, a brunch restaurant, Gritz N’ Wafflez, took on 3 to 4 inches of water on Presidents Day as customers’ phones buzzed with emergency alerts. The owner later tallied $25,000 to $30,000 in repairs to flooring, drywall and fixtures, and about $30,000 in lost revenue during a weeklong closure. Similar damage was reported from Long Beach to the San Fernando Valley as shops and eateries ripped out soaked interiors.

The storm’s impact reached the coast as well. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued an ocean water quality advisory from Monday through at least Saturday morning after the rain, warning beachgoers to avoid water near storm drains, rivers and creeks because of elevated bacteria, chemicals and debris flushed off streets and hillsides.

Deadly avalanche in the Sierra

While coastal residents dealt with flooding and contaminated surf, the same storm system was dumping several feet of snow on the Sierra Nevada.

On Feb. 17, around 11:30 a.m., a group of 15 backcountry skiers traveling with Blackbird Mountain Guides was returning from a hut trip near Frog Lake, north of Lake Tahoe, when a large avalanche roared down a slope near Castle Peak in Nevada County. The slide buried the party under heavy, wind‑loaded snow.

Nine people were killed and six survived, two with serious but non–life‑threatening injuries, according to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office. Among the dead were three professional guides employed by Blackbird and six experienced female skiers described by friends and family as devoted mothers and passionate backcountry athletes.

The Sierra Avalanche Center had issued a “backcountry avalanche warning” for the greater Lake Tahoe area before the storm, rating danger as high on a five‑point scale and warning that large, destructive avalanches were likely on many slopes.

“All recreational travel in avalanche terrain is not recommended,” the center wrote in its bulletin, noting that heavy new snow and strong winds were creating unstable slabs on a variety of aspects.

Rescue and recovery efforts were hampered by continuing storms and high avalanche danger. Authorities said they were forced to wait for mitigation crews to stabilize the slope with helicopter‑delivered explosives before searchers could safely reach all of the victims. By Feb. 21 and 22, officials announced that crews had recovered all nine bodies. The avalanche was described by state and federal officials as California’s deadliest on record and the worst in the United States since 11 climbers died on Mount Rainier in 1981.

A late-winter heat spike

As families in Tahoe and beyond mourned, California’s weather pattern flipped.

Behind the mid‑February storms, a ridge of high pressure built over the West Coast. By Feb. 25, forecast discussions from the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles noted that a strengthening high‑pressure system and “moderate north to northeast offshore flow” would bring a “significant warming trend” through the end of the week, with temperatures expected to peak Friday in the 80s and lower 90s away from the immediate coast.

Offshore winds — air flowing from inland deserts toward the ocean — dried and warmed as it descended over mountain ranges into the Los Angeles Basin, a setup similar to, though somewhat weaker than, classic Santa Ana wind events. Under clear skies, the ground heated quickly.

On Friday, Feb. 27, the forecast verified — and then some.

By midafternoon, the official downtown Los Angeles observing site had recorded a high of 91 degrees, according to the weather service. That broke the previous daily record of 88 degrees for Feb. 27, set just last year.

Across the region, thermometers toppled records. Burbank reached 94 degrees, roughly 8 to 9 degrees above the previous record for the date. Woodland Hills hit 97. Anaheim climbed to 96, surpassing its prior Feb. 27 mark of 88 set in 2008. Santa Ana logged 95 degrees, beating a record from 2025. Long Beach hit 90 to 92 degrees, depending on site, also eclipsing a 2025 record. Even the National Weather Service office in Oxnard saw its thermometer reach 89 degrees, edging past a high that had stood since 1932.

The Los Angeles office labeled conditions “very warm” for late winter and warned of an “elevated risk for heat illness for populations sensitive to heat,” advising residents to stay hydrated, limit strenuous outdoor activity in the afternoon and never leave children or pets in parked cars.

Unseasonable heat can be especially stressful in coastal neighborhoods where many homes lack air conditioning and residents are not acclimated or prepared for summerlike temperatures in winter, public health experts say.

A broader pattern across the South and West

The late‑February spike in Southern California did not occur in isolation. Much of the southern United States experienced unusual warmth at the same time.

Phoenix logged its hottest winter on record, with meteorologists there reporting that December, January and February all ran far above the long‑term average and that February was the city’s hottest on record for that month. An analysis by the research group Climate Central reported that the number of “extremely warm winter days” has increased across much of the West since 1970, including in cities such as Reno.

In Texas, a surge of hot, dry air pushed temperatures in late February more typical of August than winter. San Antonio reached 95 degrees, breaking its February record, and parts of the Rio Grande Valley climbed into the triple digits. A preliminary reading of 106 degrees at Falcon Dam on Feb. 26 could become the hottest temperature ever recorded in the United States during meteorological winter, defined as December through February, if confirmed by federal climate officials.

Scientists emphasize that no single storm or hot day can be attributed solely to climate change, but they say the pattern of more frequent and more intense warm extremes in winter is consistent with long‑term warming driven by greenhouse gas emissions.

A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, increasing the potential for heavy rain and mountain snow when storms do arrive. At the same time, higher background temperatures raise the odds of record‑setting heat, even in months that were historically mild.

The challenge of stacked hazards

In practical terms, that means communities and agencies must be prepared for rapid shifts between very different types of hazards, sometimes within days.

For emergency managers and local governments in Southern California, the mid‑February storm required sandbags, swift‑water rescues, debris‑flow monitoring and water quality advisories at the beach. The following week’s heat wave required a different set of tools: outreach to older adults and unhoused residents, guidance for outdoor workers, and attention to indoor temperatures in schools and apartments.

For small businesses, the sequence exposed financial vulnerabilities. Many commercial policies offer limited coverage for flood damage, leaving owners to cover tens of thousands of dollars in repairs. Sudden heat can then impose its own costs, from food‑safety concerns to higher energy bills.

In the Sierra, the avalanche reinforced hard lessons about recreation risk in the backcountry. The tragedy occurred despite clear warnings of “high” avalanche danger from professional forecasters and raised questions within the guiding industry and outdoor community about how risk is communicated and how commercial trips should operate when hazard ratings are elevated.

What tied the scenes together — flooded restaurants in Koreatown, a scarred avalanche path near Castle Peak, a hazy 91‑degree afternoon in downtown Los Angeles — was timing. All unfolded within a span of less than two weeks at the tail end of winter.

For Californians, that compressed calendar may be the clearest sign of what winter increasingly looks like in a warming West: not a steady season of cool, gentle rain, but a fast‑moving sequence of stronger storms, deeper snow in some mountains, and heat waves that feel out of place on the calendar, yet arrive with growing regularity.