Welcome to October!

September is in the books and she was a bit on the cool side yet a little dry as well. Despite having 7 days with measurable precipitation, the rain gauge only collected a smidgen over an inch. I did manage to record one temp in the nineties to boost the YTD total to 18 tied for the most since I started records here in 2002. There is a 99.9% chance that 2018 will pass without a triple digit high temp as September's best was a mere 90.7° The month was notably cooler than my "normal" driven by a 2° under for the overnight lows. It seemed wetter than it was as the rain that fell was short and light for the most part. Despite a week of cloudy weather, I still managed to have 20 days with sunshine.

The thermometer stayed above 40 degrees for the entire month and I measure 6 days at or above 80° Every single day in September of 2018 managed to get above 60° as well. The warmest temp was the 90.7° on the 5th, the warmest overnight temp was a warm 59° on the 8th. The coolest mark came on the morning of the 24th with a crisp 42.1°. The chilliest afternoon was the 29th when the merc had to stop at 63.7°

Rainfall was 1.04 inches, well below my typical 2.47 inches. The bulk of it coming on two consecutive days of 0.31 and 0.35 inches the 11th and 12th. Those were the only days that managed to produce more then a quarter inch. Snow levels did come down during the rainy spell that added the first fresh layer of snow to Mount St. Helens, but the warm weather last week melted it right back off.

So now we are fully engaged with autumn and we begin our frost and freeze watch. When will it frost and when will it freeze? The trees are getting ready to put on the annual fall color show and that is always a delight. I typically get the first sub freezing low in the month of October, but there have been several Octobers that did not produce a freezing temp. A frost is inevitable in October. October is also capable of producing temps in the 90s but it is rather rare, in fact even 80s are an oddity for the Harvest Month. 

October is a beautiful month weather she be cold or warm so get out and soak it up my friends, soak it up.