Wyoming Sets Spring Temperature Records, Fire Danger Rises Across Southeast Region

Cheyenne broke its all-time March temperature record at 83 degrees on the last Saturday before this week's second wave hit, and the heat was far from done with southeast Wyoming. Cheyenne and Laramie both recently set records for the hottest temperatures ever recorded in March, but those marks may not stand long: the Cheyenne Office of the National Weather Service warned Tuesday that another scorcher was arriving on Wednesday, March 25.

The warmth is part of a statewide pattern that rewrote the record books on the first day of spring. Daytime highs ranged from the high 70s to the low 80s across Wyoming on March 20 and 21, breaking previous records in some areas by more than 10 degrees. In Big Piney, 72 degrees on Thursday not only erased the previous March 19 record of 69 degrees set in 2015, it marked the first time the town had ever reached 70 degrees in March, a threshold that normally does not arrive until early April. Even Lake Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park reached 60 degrees, the first March 60-degree reading in its documented history. Myers, a meteorologist tracking the event, put the scale of the records in blunt terms: "Every one of our major climate sites broke the previous daily record by at least 7 degrees." Lander, whose climate records stretch back to 1891, beat its previous earliest report of 80 degrees by 23 days.

Wyoming was among 14 states that notched their hottest March day on record since the heat dome began, a list that also included Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas and California. Denver broke a 119-year-old record by reaching 85 degrees, while Salt Lake City hit 81 degrees, the earliest 80-degree day in that city's history.

The combination of record heat and low humidity created urgent fire conditions across the region. Much of southeast Wyoming was placed under a Red Flag Warning, with National Weather Service meteorologists expecting a high of 82 degrees in Cheyenne, nearly 30 degrees above seasonal averages, accompanied by west winds gusting between 35 and 45 mph and humidity levels as low as 10%. The NWS warned that any fires starting under those conditions would likely spread rapidly. The agency described conditions as likely to produce "widespread critical fire weather conditions for most low elevation locations."

The heat intensified infrastructure concerns already on officials' radar. Following weeks of high winds and unseasonably dry weather, Laramie County is now officially under Stage 1 fire restrictions, approved by the Laramie County Board of County Commissioners. Laramie County Fire Warden Matt Butler recommended the restrictions after the county's fire warden meeting, saying a formal recommendation was "warranted."

The Wyoming Department of Transportation closed Interstate 25 from Cheyenne to Chugwater to light, high-profile vehicles due to wind-driven blow-over risk for anything under 20,000 pounds, while a right-lane closure remained in place eastbound on Interstate 80 between Elk Mountain and Arlington at milepost 246.

Myers acknowledged that the atmosphere offers little assurance of a quick end to the pattern. "There's a lot of cold air up in the Arctic that's not going to go away anytime soon," he said. "The current pattern is modeled to be going away and fading next week, which would allow us to get into April with more opportunities for it to get colder and wetter. But every time we saw that this winter, the blocks came back. Our models have failed." When cooler air finally arrives in southeast Wyoming, lows in the mid to upper 20s will feel dramatically chilly after weeks of anomalous warmth, even though those temperatures are exactly average for late March.