2025 Central Illinois year in review

DECATUR, IL. (WAND) - Happy New Year! It wouldn’t be right to head into 2026 without taking a look back at 2025 for Central Illinois.

Total precipitation for our climate site Springfield reached 26.97” (inches), and with the average rainfall for the area sitting at 38.04”, it puts us right outside our top ten driest years. Meanwhile, we exceeded our yearly average snowfall of 21.8” with a final total of 32.6” of snow.

Another memorable run, the last 3 months of the year, where Springfield had their hottest day at 98 degrees in mid September (9/14), and coldest low at -8 degrees just 3 months later (12/14).

However, each of our seasons throughout the year had some memorable extremes and weather events:

We started the year with a winter storm between January 5th-6th that brought 6-10 inches of snow to parts of Central Illinois, and ended the month with bitterly cold temperatures 10-15 degrees below 0.

Then we headed into meteorological spring with tornado outbreaks each month: March, April, and May. The May 20th outbreak even brought tennis ball sized hail to parts of Sangamon county. We wrapped up the season with a major dust storm that left several injured from car accidents in Champaign county.

By summer, severe weather wasn’t over, and this time it left behind a flash flooding even for the Bloomington-Normal area. There was also excessive heat by the end of July that left us feeling like 110-115 degrees.

Fall may have been the most all over the place, with unseasonably hot temperatures near or at 100 degrees across central Illinois in mid September. This was immediately followed by a drought that would worsen throughout the season, and become severe for most of Central Illinois and extreme for parts of east-central Illinois. The most memorable may have been the solar storm that brought stunning views of the Northern lights across America (including Central Illinois), but it will contend the “most-memorable” title with the Thanksgiving winter storm that brought record snowfall to much of our hometowns (6”-12”).

We wrapped up the year with continued snowfall in December. Decatur had their 6th snowiest December on record, and Springfield saw a whopping 5.7” more than normal snowfall with 10” total. After a stretch of bitterly cold temperatures following the snow, we warmed up to unseasonable temperatures for the holidays. The cold front that came to cool us back down brought late season tornadoes with it on 12/28, including an EF-2 that damaged at least nine homes in Mt. Zion.

As wild of a ride it was, we made it through together. Here’s to another great year in 2026.

This information is courtesy of the National Weather Service in Lincoln.