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AND I hope for actual snow in winter. I am a hopeless eternal optimist - or a certified masochist. Why not both, I guess...

September 2025 finished tied as the 7th driest September on record for Chicago. Driest September's 1. 0.01" - 1979 2. 0.26" - 2004 3. 0.31" - 1940 4. 0.32" - 2017 4. 0.32" - 1891 6. 0.46" - 1956 7. 0.49" - 2025 7. 0.49" - 1939 9. 0.74" - 1871 10. 0.77" - 1962

September 2025 finished tied as the 7th driest September on record for Chicago. Driest September's 1. 0.01" - 1979 2. 0.26" - 2004 3. 0.31" - 1940 4. 0.32" - 2017 4. 0.32" - 1891 6. 0.46" - 1956 7. 0.49" - 2025 7. 0.49" - 1939 9. 0.74" - 1871 10. 0.77" - 1962

I think if large numbers of people actually start losing their homes by the ocean, or if we start seeing major negative impacts to agriculture, that will spark action. So far with the warming we've seen that hasn't been the case, and it's one of those things where most people have to see it to believe it.

Some locations were able to sneak in a rare late September 90°+ day on Monday. MDW was one of those locations, with a high of 90° on Monday. I said this a week ago, so we'll see if it sticks this time... We are likely done for the year with 90°+ days, so the below will likely be the final overall tally for the year. ...2025 90°+ Day Tally... 30 - MDW 28 - DPA 28 - PWK 27 - ORD 27 - ARR 22 - LOT 20 - RFD 17 - UGN

Drought conditions: Dramatic images show record low river levels in downtown Grand Rapids

Unfortunately, that appears to be the de facto strategy. The issue isn't one of technology (the technology already exists and is improving), costs (renewable energy is less expensive than fossil fuels), resources for investment (society has proved capable of mobilizing enormous sums of money at rapid speed), or lack of time (the problem has been known for decades allowing for a very gradual transition), but one of a decided and purposeful lack of urgency. A book published last year (Wiegandt 2024) that sketches out, in part, a world that is 3°C warmer than the pre-industrial world (likely scenario by 2100 on the current path), highlights how human societies mobilize when they perceive that there are real, grave, and urgent problems and when they don't. Unfortunately, the issue of climate change falls into the latter example as far as human society is concerned, even noting the dramatic backward developments in the United States. The book's editor wrote: In such a future world, we will have to deal with a radicalization of weather patterns and with temperatures that will be as much as 6 degrees higher on average over land areas. Such a transformation will have grave effects on global agriculture, massively damage global infrastructure, and significantly impair or even destroy large ecosystems... I would like to recall that governments mobilized trillions of U.S. dollars, overnight, as it were, both in 2008 to deal with the world financial crisis and in 2020 in the wake of the rampant Corona pandemic! We must realize that global warming poses an incomparably greater challenge. Given the editor's observation and lack of action today, once irreversible outcomes are realized e.g., from rising sea level, the greatest tragedy won't be the loss of valuable real estate that is reclaimed by a rising ocean and the social and economic dislocations it causes, bad as they might be. The greatest tragedy will be that the problem was fully avoidable had today's generation of political leaders possessed the courage and foresight to act. They could have prevented the outcome. Instead, they chose to subject future generations, including today's youth, to the growing consequences of a warmer world. A return to the mid-Pliocene almost certainly won't bring about a tropical Paradise on Earth.

Starting tonight we are going to get chilly for several nights. Tonight we dip into the upper 40s and by Friday morning some may see the 30s.

my musings were based on 0z/6z gfs and ens guidance rolled forward beyond 10/8.

I "suspect" we see the typical mid-late Nov cold snap which lasts into the last third of December, a BIG thaw, and maybe a return later in the winter of some cold. LR ext modeling is much less bullish on even minor cold shots for this upcoming winter - big SERs showing up on modeling. I just don't think the Nina is gonna be that strong. The CANSIPS can bust bigly at times. I do think late season heat typically signals a fairly major flip to cold at some point - like summer to winter within days. Nearly all modeling has a significant warm-up mid-winter.

I got just a T after sunrise yesterday. My total for Sept was a mere 1.04” vs 17.2” in August!

Yeah. It appears to be keying on the Nina with that Aleutian Ridge. ENSO is the highest percentage Driver the LR's incorporate.

The Plains was the coolest part of the CONUS this summer relative to the long term averages.

Yep. Hopefully not extreme warmth . Probably be more tropical mischief. Hopefully we get rain from that , if not could result in that extreme warmth. Typical first Freeze in Valley areas around here is the 10-15th. Use to be a bit earlier. If that off and on advertised mid month cold shot is not realized it's going to be late. Looking like a not so good foliage Season at my Local as the Leaves are dying and falling with no color orber than dark brown as if blight has hit them.

Probably the most significant pattern change we've seen in a while is on the horizon... We're going to replace the constant re-loading +EPO with a re-loading -EPO and -PNA. This will likely will lead to a more active weather pattern than we've seen (That's not hard to do) and more of an up/down temperature regime, with some shots of real fall conditions.

at a glance we're frosting in the interior in SNE's climo cold spots dunnite. should have no issues decoupling with DPs in the 35-40 range under gaping wound heat hemorrhaging sky. not sure if the DPs do that 7 pm bounce back

In 1963 we no fall. Average high temperatures in October for the month were a ridiculous 71.7, a plus 6 departure from Normal. It hit 87 on October 7th. In total 5 days were 80 or above and an insane 15 were 75. The mean high temperature was 4th highest all time. Our lows however were a negative 3.5 from normal at 42.5. The reason? Not only did we have the driest October on record, but it was also the single driest month ever, and still is, at 0.04". My dear weather nerds, what followed was pure beauty of snow starting December 10. Following is December to March snow 15.8 19.4 30.2 9.0 Sent from my SM-X210 using Tapatalk

Interesting, everything is shifting to January as February has been getting warmer at a more rapid rate.

the wind made it bad but now it's good no more wind

Three of my favorite summers in this list-- 1966, 1999, 1993. Why not 2002? 2022 was not hot in any memorable way though.

2022 wasn't that hot though 1999 definitely was, I have great memories of that wonderful summer!!

It was the wettest monsoon season in Phoenix since 2021 and biggest one- and two-day rainfalls since October 2018.

Also can vary quite a bit locally. According to that, CO just had our 11th warmest summer on record, but here on the Front Range, it was only slightly warmer than the 30 year average. Including September and May, it was one of the coolest warm seasons of the past 15 years, so it really did feel mild...even if it would have qualified as a very warm summer 40 years ago.

The GFS is waffling on a strong cold front mid-month. Sometimes it has it, others it doesn't. 0z had frost in the area by the 16th. 12z is torchy.

27.3F for a low here... not quite the coldest we've had, but close