Among the notable weather trends locally for October were higher than average temperatures and a lack of precipitation. Meteorologist Andy Boxell with the National Weather Service in Springfield explains just how warm the month was.
“Well October of 2015 here in the Springfield area was a fair deal warmer than what we’ve had compared to long-term averages, we were almost two degrees above normal for the month and that made it the 36th warmest October on record,” says Boxell.
And that unusually warm and dry weather has had an impact.
“Well, for at least portions of the month of October we were considered to be in a drought across the area, and in fact we are still right now in what’s called a D-0 status, so abnormally dry. Not quite in a drought territory but close.”
According to Boxell, one of the better chances for rain we had throughout the month came from landfall of Hurricane Patricia.
“We did see a good dose of rain for most of the region as a result of Patricia and that really got us into a little bit more favorable precipitation pattern going into November,” Boxell says.
And as that pattern of precipitation continues over the next few weeks, Boxell says the drought status may be removed. However some situations still remain that caused the current pattern of warm dry conditions. Boxell says if this pattern remains we could be looking at warmer and perhaps more moist conditions heading into the heart of the winter months.
But he cautions this region’s climate can at times be very unpredictable.
“Really as things go around here, so many things effect the large scale weather patterns across the Ozarks that we just have to take things one week at a time.”
Visit the webpage for the National Weather Service to view the October climate summary.