By Reginald Stanley. Posted February 1, 2026, 8:38 PM.

The recent unseasonably warm, dry weather affecting the region for most of January, is forecast to continue into at least the first half of February coupled with frequent episodes of Santa Ana Wind events.

This unseasonable warmth has been ongoing throughout the winter of 2025-2026 across Southern California, standing in stark contrast to the polar vortex-induced extreme cold gripping the eastern half of the United States as far south as central Florida. The region has so far avoided severe drought conditions, a result of several very wet storm sequences in November and late December-early January. Precipitation for the month of January was below-average across the WeatherCurrents network, with most stations recording monthly totals around 40-60 percent of normal for January.

Strong, persistent upper level ridging across the western United States has also contributed to significant deficits in annual snowpack, with the exception of the central and southern Sierra Nevada mountains. Across inland Southern California, high temperatures in the 80s during the last days of January were widespread, with some coastal locations recording high temperatures in the low 90s (!) on January 30. WeatherCurrents' station in Lake Elsinore notably recorded a high temperature of 89 degrees on February 1st; while in Simi Valley, low temperatures were only dropping into the 60s. Temperatures on Monday are expected to cool somewhat due to onshore flow, however a surface high is expected to form over the Great Basin later in the week, ramping temperatures back up in addition to the return of Santa Ana Winds. For the weekend, uncertainty grows in the forecast with the potential development of an upper low approaching the west coast. At the time of this writing, any chance of precipitation from this system remains low. The overall warm, dry pattern dominating the western United States appears to remain strong through at least the middle of February.