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Syracuse, NY – Central New York is likely to break the record for the hottest first half of October on record, and that doesn’t bode well for fall colors.
During the first 14 days of October, the National Weather Service predicts the average temperature will be more than 2 degrees above the previous record, set in 2007.
While no day is expected to break a record, the length of the heat wave will be unprecedented. For example, the record for the most days of at least 70 degrees in the first half of October is 10. Expected for the same period this month: 14.
The average high at this time of year in Syracuse is 62 degrees and the low is 44. For next week, temperatures are expected to be 10 to 15 degrees above these averages.
Early next week, Syracuse could experience high temperatures of 78 degrees. This is a typical high temperature in mid-June, when Syracuse enjoys four more hours of sunshine than today.
The extraordinary heat is channeled from the southwest through an unusually deep trough in the jet stream, which stretches from the Aleutian Islands to southern California, New York state climatologist Mark Wysocki said. This pattern means much colder than normal weather in the west and warmer in the east.
“We now have this great wave that has developed just over North America,” he explained. “It pushes a lot of hot desert air from the Southwest to the Midwest and builds this huge ridge from Minnesota to Maine.”
The jet stream could get stuck in this pattern for 10 days, Wysocki said. And because the desert air coming towards us is dry, he said, little rain is forecast for central New York.
The Federal Center for Climate Prediction plan now above normal temperatures throughout October and into the fall.
Fall colors will suffer, however. Already, the rainy and cloudy regime in early October provided the trees with little solar energy to start breaking down the chlorophyll and exposing the underlying colors. Now, warm temperatures, especially at night, will further delay colors and make them less bright than usual, Wysocki said.
“We had the first heavy blow with the humidity, the cloudiness and the lack of sunshine, and now we’re going to have the second part, which will be the warmer temperatures at night,” Wysocki said. “I see the foliage on our soil growing back for maybe 10 days, and it won’t be so pretty.”
The best recipe for bright fall colors, said Don Leopold, professor of botany at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, is “cool days, cool nights and very sunny days.”
For the next 10 days, it looks like we’ll only have one in three.
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