By Chuck Otte
Geary County Agricultural Extension Agent
October was cold and dry, but not record setting in either category. We did see our first snowfall of the snowfall season. Not enough to do more than make the landscape fairytale like, make roads slick and make people who despise winter, shudder! A cold snap from the 23rd through the end of the month also sent us shivering with daily high temperatures lower than normal overnight lows for several days.
The average daily high in October was 63.8, 3.9 degrees below normal. The average overnight low was 41.7, 2.3 degrees below normal giving us a monthly mean temperature of 52.8, 3.0 degrees below normal.
The highest temperature for the month was 92 on the 7th. The lowest temperature of the month was the morning low of 23 on the 24th, 25th and 26th. While it was colder than normal it didn’t manage to even break into the top 5 coldest Octobers on record. That record is a monthly mean temperature of 49.1 in 2002 and 2009. The warmest October on record was in 1963 with a monthly mean temperature of 69 degrees.
We pretty much covered the spectrum for temperature records set or tied in October. The high of 92 on the 7th tied the record high for that date. The record was originally set in 1949. The three mornings (24th through 26th) that we had the 23 degree readings all broke records for those dates. The old records for those dates and the year they were set are, respectively: 26 in 1965, 25 in 1975, and 24 in 1957. Three record low high temperatures were also set during that cold snap on the 25th through the 27th. The new record low high followed by the old record and the years they were set are: 35 on the 25th, the old record was 44 in 1957 and 2002. 28 on the 26th, the old record was 32 set in 1957 and 42 on the 27th with an old record of 42 in 2002.
We normally expect rainfall to taper off in the fall and through the winter but not this much! Average monthly rainfall for October is 2.62 inches. Milford Lake received 0.37 inches and Junction City 0.29 inches. September was also below normal and the two months combined make us over 2.5" below normal since September 1st. Normal precipitation year to date is 30.58 inches. Junction City has received 27.60 inches and Milford Lake 32.27 inches. We did receive enough snowfall to measure on the 26th. A whopping 0.3 inches of snow was recorded, three times the long term average of 0.1 inches of snow for October.
November gets colder, snowier and drier. As we head through the month we drop from an average daily high of 61 on November 1 to 48 on the 30th. Average overnight lows drop from a chilly 39 on the 1st to a frosty 25 on the 30th. We should be past any 90 degree days but as we have already seen we can still hit 80 or above in the first half of November. On the other extreme, single digits for overnight lows aren’t out of the question anytime in November and sub-zero has even been reached on a couple of occasions (late in the month in 1952). Average liquid precipitation for November is 1.55 inches and long term average snowfall is an even one inch for the month.