Flip-flopping spring weather is perfectly normal. The weather in March this year was more like April. And April’s weather was like the March we should have had.
From warm and sunny days into the 70’s, to cold and snowy days with highs in the 30’s, April 2026 had something for every weather connoisseur’s tastes. In this week’s column I’ll look back at the ups and downs of the weather from this past month. Then I’ll provide some insight into what the month of May might be like, weather-wise here in Jackson.
Temperature Roller Coaster
On the 16th of April 2026 Jackson came within one degree of the record for coldest maximum temperature on that date. It only reached a high of 34 degrees that day in town, the record for April 16th is 33 degrees from 1960.
Five days later, on April 21st, 2026, the high temperature was 72 degrees in town. That’s a 38-degree swing in temperature, in less than a week’s time. The next day, on April 22nd, the high temperature in town was 45 degrees, a 27-degree drop in one day.
On April 24th, 2026, the high temperature in Jackson was only 35 degrees, tying the record for that date, also from 1960. The next morning, April 25th, the low temperature in town was 12 degrees, which tied the record low temperature for that date from 1945.
The average high temperature this April was 50.8 degrees, more than a degree cooler than the long-term average of 52 degrees. The average low temperature for April 2026 ended up at 25.8 degrees, a little more than a degree warmer than the long-term average in April of 24 degrees.
Even with all that temperature fluctuation, the mean temperature for April 2026 was 38.3 degrees, very close to the long-term average of 38 degrees.
Rain and Snow
April 2026 almost made up for the deficit Jackson had for precipitation and snowfall in the month of March. March 2026 only had 0.32 inches of precipitation, whereas this April recorded 1.68 inches in town. That’s above the average precipitation for April of 1.22 inches.
March 2026 only recorded 2.5 inches of snowfall in town, but April 2026 recorded 6.5 inches. The average snowfall for April in Jackson is 4 inches.
Mountain Snow
Data from the Rendezvous Bowl weather station, at around the 9,600-foot elevation at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, only recorded 32 inches of snowfall in March of 2026. An average March would see 67 inches of snowfall.
April 2026 recorded 68 inches of snowfall for the month, an inch more that an average March. This April had nearly twice the average snowfall for April on the mountain, which is 35 inches at that location and elevation.
Also of note, the settled snow depth at Rendezvous Bowl on April 1st, 2026, was at 76 inches. At the end of the month, on April 30th, it was up to 88 inches. Which means there is still plenty of snow yet to melt at the higher elevations.
This is the snow, and the water contained in it, that the SnoTel network does not account for. Most of the SnoTel instruments for the Snake River Drainage are located below the 8,200-ft. elevation. The Two Ocean site is the only higher elevation SnoTel site, at 9,240-ft. and it was at 108% of the median Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) on May 1st, 2026. Blind Bull at 8,880-ft. was 101% of normal.
A note on mountain temperatures, they also had big swings. On the morning of April 17th, 2026, the temperature at the top of the tram at around the 10,000-ft. elevation was 4°F. Four days later , on April 21st, 2026, the high temperature was 49°F.
May Weather to Come
I think I figured out why they call it the Month of May. It may be warm and sunny, or it may be cold and wet. That is May in a nutshell. To give you an idea of what it might be like, I’ll outline the historical averages, or what is considered “normal” for May, and what the extremes have been historically here in Jackson in Mays past.
May Temps
The long-term average high temperature in Jackson for the month of May is 63 degrees. That’s eleven degrees warmer than April’s average high. The average low temperature in May is 31 degrees, or 7 degrees warmer than April’s average low.
The record high temperature in Jackson in May is 90 degrees, set on May 29th, 2003. The record low temperature in town is 5 degrees, set on May 2nd, 1988.
Those are the extremes of temperature experienced here in Jackson in May.
May Precip
According to the long-term historical weather records, May is still considered the wettest month of the year in Jackson. Averaging 1.83 inches of precipitation. The record for precipitation in May is 6.02 inches, from 1980, which also qualified as the seconded wettest month in Jackson’s weather history, behind September 1924, which had 6.53 inches of precipitation. The driest May on record was in 1969, with only 0.13 inches of precip.
Jackson only averages about one inch of snowfall in May. But in May of 1942, Jackson received 14.5 inches of snow.
Don’t count on this May being close to average, count on it falling somewhere in-between the extremes.
The 30-day outlook for temperatures and precipitation for the month of May are shown below, for the USA, from NOAA.
Something I have mentioned many times over the last 30-plus years writing this column, “it is the extremes of weather that make our averages”. So, if you expect every month, every season, or every year to be close to normal here in western Wyoming, then you have been deceived. It is more likely our weather will be well outside of what we consider to be “normal”.
As Mark Twain once said, “Climate is what we expect, and weather is what we get”.
Jim is the chief meteorologist at mountainweather.com and has forecast the weather in Jackson Hole for the last 35 years.
Portions of this post appeared in the Jackson Hole News & Guide on May 6th, 2026.