October 2026 general discussion

[Damage In Tolland]

Still going strong .In fact, some of the pepper plants are flowering  Tgiving or bust 

[WinterWolf]

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

You guys had snow though iirc? Pretty sure it even changed down on the upper cape. 

I was on my to the gym(which is just over the line a mile or two)in chesire, and I came up to route 10, and that shot was in front of me, so I snapped a picture.   Yes, we in Southington had the snow, as you can see in that picture, but Chesire it wasn’t sticking as well. 

[Typhoon Tip]

heh... in and of itself this is rather impressive for a week from tomorrow

[WinterWolf]

Yes.  But GFS at 8 days….ya skeptical. 

[tamarack]

We've had measurable rain on 3 of 8 days this month, which would project 137 such days per year, only 7 days less than average (average precip is 48.83)".  Total precip is 0.06" - totaling 2.74" for the year.  No wonder the Sandy River is in the bottom 10% and Carrabassett in the bottom 5%.

The upper halves of trees here are 90% de-leafed.  Lower half about halfway.  Today's wind hasn't been grabbing much foliage so far.

[SnoSki14]

4 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

heh... in and of itself this is rather impressive for a week from tomorrow

Looks like a repeat of last month with the mega ridge to the SW of here. 

[Typhoon Tip]

39 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

Looks like a repeat of last month with the mega ridge to the SW of here. 

whatever that was or wasn't, okay.  but that above is probably a record challenging warm blast clear to moose dung

[moneypitmike]

Got a new station up at Pit2.   Sitting at the top of the rocks that drops off to the water.  Sited  about 25 feet above the water at low tide.  With open water for two miles to the north,  a mile to the east, and 2 miles to the southeast it should be really good for wind speeds during coastals.

south to west will come in really meh.

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KMEBATH53?cm_ven=localwx_pwsdash

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

How are we looking for latter October? Trying to get a feel for whether or not we can get away with doing my 7 yr old's Bday outdoors....looks kind of seasonable-ish?

[kdxken]

What's the consensus on late Sunday/ Monday and early next week? Ass? Would be a shame to waste any of Octobe.r

[CoastalWx]

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

How are we looking for latter October? Trying to get a feel for whether or not we can get away with doing my 7 yr old's Bday outdoors....looks kind of seasonable-ish?

I think so

[CoastalWx]

4 minutes ago, kdxken said:

What's the consensus on late Sunday/ Monday and early next week? Ass?

Maybe just Sunday night. Should be better late morning Monday. Hopefully.

[Damage In Tolland]

This tells us all we need to know. 3 westward moving typhoons and no recurve . Mild as far as eye can see with no troughing .

https://x.com/ryanweather/status/2108372136901390378?s=46

[powderfreak]

Passing showers today.

[codfishsnowman]

On 10/4/2026 at 5:34 AM, vortex95 said:

The "what if" and "could be" scenarios along w/ endless speculation, conjecture, and opinion are all that matters.   It is the business paradigm, and a deplorable one at that.

ENSO does not work necessarily in a linear fashion for all regions of the globe, so the notion that this is strongest one on record = worse by default is flawed.  Also, you can't compare ones long ago (1877-78) to what would happen today in terms of societal impact.  50M fatalities then and equating to now?  Back then, the world was very different.  You did not have scale of global economic trade and communication, let alone forecasts that allow us to prepare.

And we did just fine in all other very strong El Ninos since 1950, so why is this one going to be *any* different overall?  I say "overall" b/c that is key.  Yes, the Atlantic TC season is more suppressed than ever, and the EPAC is record levels, but focusing on such details is narrow-minded.  What is happening in the big picture, and taking into account to what has happened before in very strong El Ninos, is actually happening as expected for TCs in the Atlantic and EPAC.  And we already see signs for the STJ getting active in the LR and already a wet pattern across the Gulf Coast States, and perhaps our first Gulf wave/Miller A storm.

There is far to much focus on what is different and the negative, and the same and positive are ignored, ever notice that?  You'd think El Nino leads to pure atmospheric chaos, when it clearly does not.  It is well understood and has plenty of order, as evidenced what was said in the previous paragraph.

And yet you get fear-mongering articles like this:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/23/climate/super-el-nino-heat-deaths

Notice it is "could cause", again, conditional supposition.  But here what they do not tell you. Such warmer global conditions mitigate significant cold-related issues/fatalities globally, and cold causes more fatalities than warm in the mean. The article says that there could be an excess of 3500 fatalities in the U.S. alone, but no mention of lives saved due things like the lack of hurricanes and a mild winter.  Clear cherry-picking/omission of facts here.

Want harder info and proof?  See here about the impacts of the 1997-98 event.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/80/9/1520-0477_1999_080_1819_ioenog_2_0_co_2.xml

So they found for costs:
• $1.7 billion, and uninsured losses were estimated
as $ 1.1 billion based on the fact that insured storm
losses normally represent 65% of all structural
losses from storms
• federal government relief = $400 million;
• state assistance costs = $125 million;
• agricultural losses = $650 to $700 million;
• lost sales in snow-removal equipment = $60-
$80 million
• losses in the tourist industry = $ 180 to $200 million.

For benefits:
• reduced heating costs = $6.7 billion;
• increased sales of merchandise, homes, and other
goods = $5.6 billion;
• reductions in costs of street/highway removal of ice
and snow = $350-$400 million;
• reductions in normal losses due to absence of
snowmelt floods and no Atlantic hurricanes =
$6.9 billion;
• income from increased construction and related
employment = $450-$500 million
• reduced operating costs to airlines and trucking industry
= $160-$ 175million.

Totals:
LOSSES
Human lives lost = 189
Economic losses and costs = $4.2-$4.5 billion

BENEFITS
Human lives saved = 850
Economic gains = $19.6-$ 19.9 billion

So how is this bad net-net?  Very strong El Nino has a considerable net benefit. and from an individual intuitive/empirical observation POV, it is not hard to see how such benefits come about in society.  The savings in heating costs *alone* exceed all other losses.
 

 

This was a great read. Thank you for the indepth intelligent and fact based response. I am of very ordinarily intellect, just always fascinated by weather but these videos are getting out of control.

[Modfan2]

Down to 39F this am, off a low of 51F yesterday and 32F the day before…

[ineedsnow]

We wish we were in Florida.. storm still intensifying quickly

[Go Kart Mozart]

GFS hour 384.  Let's do this:

[WinterWolf]

10 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

This tells us all we need to know. 3 westward moving typhoons and no recurve . Mild as far as eye can see with no troughing .

https://x.com/ryanweather/status/2108372136901390378?s=46

GFS says no….10/25 it has a monster trough and storm on the coast.  Yup…it’s a junk model now, and way out in time, but it’s no different than saying what you’re saying. 
 

And why would we not want mild and comfortable in mid October?  It’s exactly what we are supposed to have.  Most of us have already had our first frost, and frozen vehicle morning just two days ago. We are stepping down nicely.  

[Brewbeer]

the difference is one is wishcasting, the other is forecasting

53/47 with clear sunny skies

[WxWatcher007]

35 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

GFS says no….10/25 it has a monster trough and storm on the coast.  Yup…it’s a junk model now, and way out in time, but it’s no different than saying what you’re saying. 
 

And why would we not want mild and comfortable in mid October?  It’s exactly what we are supposed to have.  Most of us have already had our first frost, and frozen vehicle morning just two days ago. We are stepping down nicely.  

FWIW, which is not much at the moment, the GFS/Euro/Euro AI and ensembles have troughing roll through the eastern U.S. around October 18th. It could be enough to trigger another coastal. 

[Damage In Tolland]

Everyone that knows a lick about weather knows west moving typhoons means ridging or zonal flow and not cold lol

[Sey-Mour Snow]

If it rains next Sunday I quit..  $2000 for fall baseball 8 tournaments at this age they only play Saturday for seeding then Sunday single eliminination.. so far 6 tournaments in and 5 have been rained out on Sundays (semis and championship), one tournament completely washed out, and this Sunday is 50/50.. 

[WxWatcher007]

Question for @Sey-Mour Snow @weatherwiz @CT Rain

How much would CT benefit from having its own mesonet? Does being a small state cut against its need? I know we already have several airport stations around the state, but would a mesonet aid in long term data collection and forecasting in a way that would outweigh the cost of setup and maintenance?

[forkyfork]

she needs more time

[WinterWolf]

2 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Everyone that knows a lick about weather knows west moving typhoons means ridging or zonal flow and not cold lol

lol…first of all at these lead times, it’s not worth much either way.  And, there are no hard a fast rules that work in every scenario.  Those that have any knowledge about weather, know this.  
 

And at this time of the year…nobody is forecasting cold, even if there is troughing in the eastern U.S., so I don’t really get what you’re saying?  Troughing to produce a system is all that is being discussed. 

[WinterWolf]

3 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

FWIW, which is not much at the moment, the GFS/Euro/Euro AI and ensembles have troughing roll through the eastern U.S. around October 18th. It could be enough to trigger another coastal. 

Agreed. Just have to see how it plays out…but at the moment there’s model support. That’s all that can be said currently . 

[ineedsnow]

starting to strengthen quick..  it was 959mb last update

 

[Go Kart Mozart]

Way off topic for us, but it looks like a tropical storm (maybe hurricane) for San Diego within the next week.  Serious flooding into the deserts of Nevada and Utah.

[Cyclone-68]

23 minutes ago, Go Kart Mozart said:

Way off topic for us, but it looks like a tropical storm (maybe hurricane) for San Diego within the next week.  Serious flooding into the deserts of Nevada and Utah.

I think Kansas will see a tropical storm before we do again. Or just anyplace but here. I’m headed to Phoenix for a week next weekend and I’ll miss the storms down there currently. I can’t win