Tracking March heat records, climate connections in Northern California

An unprecedented stretch of March heat is underway in Northern California. This pattern will spread across the entire West this week.

Daily records will easily be broken and all-time March records are within reach Tuesday through Saturday. Sacramento is also likely to tally up the most 80 degree days in any March going back to 1941.

This unusually early heat has seasonal blooms and crops growing fast. Meanwhile the Sierra snowpack seems to be shrinking even faster.

On Monday, the UC Berkeley Central Snow Lab said in a social media post that if current projections hold, the lab site could be without snow as early as the first week of April.

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Below is a summary of the records observed so far as well as the forecast from the KCRA 3 weather team.

Sacramento’s earliest 90° in the forecast

The earliest 90 degree day on record could occur at Sacramento Executive Airport within the next few days.

The KCRA 3 weather team is forecasting a high of 89 degrees on Wednesday. Then a high of 90 degrees on Thursday, March 19.

This would be the airport’s earliest recording of a 90-degree day by more than two weeks. The current earliest 90-degree day is April 6. That occurred in 1989. Records at Executive Airport go back to 1941.

Tracking record highs

Tuesday brought widespread record highs to Northern California. San Francisco, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto and South Lake Tahoe all broke daily records according to the National Weather Service.

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Stockton’s high of 87 degrees on Tuesday tied the city’s all-March record high.

The records began rolling in last weekend.

Sacramento reached 80 degrees for the first time in 2026 on Sunday. The high was 82 degrees, which tied the daily record high set in 2007. On average, Sacramento reaches 80 degrees for the first time on April 4.

Monday’s high temperature broke a record for Sacramento. The National Weather Service reported a high of 84 degrees. The previous record was 83 degrees in 2007.

Stockton and Modesto’s daily record highs are a bit warmer than Sacramento’s. High temperatures in both cities have stayed below record territory through Monday.

Valley records are between 83 and 87 degrees Tuesday, 82 to 85 degrees Wednesday and 81 to 87 degrees Thursday.

Sacramento is also likely to set a new record for the highest number of 80 degree days in March. The current record is 7 days. The forecast currently calls for at least 8.

Daily record highs are possible through Saturday in the Valley and Tahoe area.

Summerlike forecast

This week’s weather pattern is dominated by an area of high pressure that’s more typical of summer than early spring. This strong high will create a dome of heat over the West through the start of the weekend.

Sacramento’s high temperatures will range between 86 and 90 degrees Tuesday through Saturday. The record high temperature for the entire month of March is 88 degrees. Stockton’s monthly record is 87. Modesto’s is 89.

Summerlike warmth is also in the forecast in the Sierra. Tahoe-area temperatures will range between 70 and 76 degrees this week. Daily record highs for South Lake Tahoe run between 63 and 68 degrees. The March record is 71.

The role of climate change

Warm, dry spells aren’t unusual this time of year in Northern California. But this prolonged stretch of record heat will be unprecedented in terms of modern record keeping.

That’s due in large part to the effects of global climate change. According to data published by NASA, Earth’s global average temperature has been increasing since the Industrial Revolution. The rate of that increase has nearly doubled in the past 50 years.

When large scale warming happens in the background, our hottest days become hotter and our cold days become less cool. Just in the past six years, Sacramento’s Executive Airport has recorded 61 record high temperatures but only 6 record low temperatures.

Said another way, climate change is putting a finger on the scale for high temperature records. And it’s making them more likely in the future.

The group Climate Central has a model called the Climate Shift Index. It tracks the influence of global warming on major weather events. According to the Climate Shift Index, this week’s heat in the Four Corners region is 5 times more likely to occur in the future because of global temperature increases over the past 50 years.

The climate science community is in strong agreement that increases in global temperatures are mostly being driven by human greenhouse gas emissions.

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