Um, where did fall go? 162 heat records could be broken across the US this week
Fall is here! ‘Tis the time for cozy sweaters and pumpkin spice and… record-breaking 90-plus degree weather across the country!
Yeah, maybe those sweaters are going to have to wait.
Even though it’s technically autumn, parts of the US are currently feeling some historic heat. There are 162 possible record highs and 164 record warm lows (aka the lowest temperature is warmer than usual) forecast across the country from Tuesday to Thursday.
— On Wednesday, temperatures in New York City’s Central Park could reach 90 degrees. According to the National Weather Service, there have only been five other recorded times when the area has seen 90 degree temperatures in October, and the last one was in 1941.
— In Atlanta, where it’s not as unusual to see summer heat overstay its welcome, they’re looking at a different kind of record: Currently, the record in Atlanta is 90 days over 90 degrees in a calendar year. If every day between Tuesday and Friday hits the forecast 90 degrees, it would make 91 days over 90 in 2019. That’s a new record level of hot. (The old record was set in 2011.)
— Columbus City Schools in Ohio canceled all classes for Wednesday because of the heat and humidity. The forecast high is 91 degrees — 20 degrees above the average high temperature for early October.
— Pensacola, Florida reached a high of 96 degrees on Tuesday, which shatters the all-time record high temperature for the month of October.
— Nashville reached a withering 97 degrees on Tuesday, making it the warmest October day in the city’s history. That record was set on October 1, 1953.
— Indianapolis; Asheville, North Carolina and Charleston, West Virginia were among the dozens of other citys that broke October heat records with Tuesday temperatures in the 90s.
Luckily, the National Weather Service says the unusual heat will dissipate by the end of the week, and we’ll start to feel a bit of that familiar fall chill.
While some areas have been hotter than a pumpkin spice latte, Montana was buried with record-breaking snow over the weekend. Browning, Montana got 48 inches of snow and Great Falls, Montana hit a new one-day September snow record with 9.7 inches. Weather is weird.
The unseasonable heat is part of a larger pattern of, you guessed it, climate change.
Shifting temperature patterns across the globe fueled several dangerous summer heat waves that broke records in Europe and the US. Another heat wave rolled all the way up from the Sahara to Greenland, where the high temperatures threatened the world’s second-largest ice sheet.
