Hot enough for you? Unusual summer temps have been hanging on across much of the U.S., forecasters said, and no real cold is in sight in the forecast until at least mid-November.
As USA Today reports, according to the National Weather Service, “a quiet and relatively uneventful fall weather pattern will be in place across the continental U.S. through early Friday, with high pressure keeping mainly sunny skies in place across the Central and Eastern U.S. and the very pleasant conditions continuing.”
And while it might be a bit cooler Thursday in the Midwest and East, don’t expect any real relief anytime soon, as temperatures look to stay well above average across the eastern two-thirds of the country into next week, according to Weather.com.
In fact, meteorologists are saying that in parts of the U.S., October is shaping up to be one of the warmest, driest Octobers on record.
Why has it been so warm?
The ongoing warmth is due to the position of the jet stream, which has been unusually far north, AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines told USA TODAY. This has shut off any chilly air coming down from Canada.
How warm has it been? More than two dozen daily record-high temperatures were shattered in the Northeast so far this week, Weather.com said. In addition, much of the U.S. has been lacking rainfall the past few weeks. The dry ground promotes higher temperatures, he said. It’s staying dry, Kines said, because moisture from the Gulf of Mexico has been cut off, so it can’t migrate north into the U.S.
Cooler weekend, then warm again next week
Kines added that there will be bouts of cooler weather over the next couple of weeks that don’t last too long. For example, he said cooler weather is coming to the northern half of the U.S. the second half of this week. But there will be another surge of warmth next week. “However, it may not be quite as impressive as this week,” he said.
How dry we are
Drought is becoming a concern nationwide as more than 77% of the country is classified as “abnormally dry,” the latest U.S. Drought Monitor reported.
“It has been bone-dry across much of the country for the past 30 days,” said AccuWeather chief on-air meteorologist Bernie Rayno. “We saw excessive rainfall in parts of the Southeast, Florida and the Carolinas from hurricanes Helene and Milton. There was also plenty of rain in parts of New Mexico and Colorado from an upper low. That’s been it. The rest of the country has been very dry. We are seeing fronts moving across the country from west to east, but they’re moisture starved.”
According to Weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce, more than two dozen locations east of the Rockies have seen no measurable rain in October. New York City and Philadelphia stand out in the Northeast, while several cities from Columbia, South Carolina, to Atlanta, Dallas-Forth Worth and St. Louis haven’t had measurable rain either. Philadelphia, New York City, and other cities are on pace for not only their driest October on record but also their driest month ever since records have been kept, dating back well into the 1800s, AccuWeather said.
“The precipitation outlook for the rest of the month doesn’t look promising for any measurable rainfall,” the National Weather Service office in Memphis posted on X. “This could become the all-time driest October on record for our climate sites.”
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