October is in the books and it was a chilly one by 'normal' standards. My observed morning lows averaged almost 6 degrees under normal and daily highs were nearly 3 degrees under. We had an outbreak of early arctic air that led to a week of genuinely chilly mornings and that no doubt pushed the averages down. But honestly the whole month of October was pretty cool. There was not one single day in which the thermometer at my station was able to break through the 70° barrier. Along with the cooler temps was drier air with only about a third of normal precipitation falling. The last five days of the month had below freezing mornings and 4 of them were daily low records. Oddly the 27° mark on the morning of Halloween was three degrees warmer than the record at my station of 24° set back in 2006.Overall the temps were cool and I had NINE daily record lows fall in October of 2019! That's nearly a third of the month with record lows! Despite the chilly morning temps, the all time record at my station for October was safe as that was the aforementioned 24° on Halloween, 2006. I did get a 24.1 on the 30th this year which was the coldest temp of the month and just a tenth off the all time mark. I even had a coldest daytime high all time record for the month of October when the merc only reached 45.5 on the 29th. The warmest temp was on the afternoon of the the 6th when we got oh so close to seventy with a mark of 69.4°. We had one warm overnight low of 50.4° on the 16th. October 2019 gave us seven days with morning lows below freezing, and more than half the month failed to reach 60°.
The rain bucket stayed pretty dry only catching 1.64 inches well below the typical 4.15 inches for October. Just 9 days with any rain and not a single day over 1/2 inch. There were just three days over a 1/4 inch. The soggiest day this October could muster was a 0.44 inch on the 17th.
So is this cold October a herald for what is to come this winter? It is hard to say, but I do remember a chilly October back in 2003 that led to a snow event in late November and and very cold and snowy January 2004. That 2003-04 winter is the second snowiest I have on record at this location with nearly two feet falling that season. We can only wonder what dastardly deeds Old Man winter has planned. I like snow, so bring it on ;)
