October surprise & sneak peek to Halloween

October is zipping by and we will pass the halfway point this weekend. The weather this weekend sure won't feel like mid-October as all of sudden, the weather pattern is going to look like July. In fact, take a look at the similarities between July 12 and the forecast pattern for October 17. Remarkable! About the only differences are the exact locations of the H and L, but they aren't off by much. All of this means we are about to see summer weather returning to Kansas.

The image below is the raw data from July 12. If you love looking at weather maps, you can see for yourself how similar the pattern is to July.

As you would expect, there's a good chance we will be close to record highs beginning Sunday and continuing into Monday. This hot weather will have much of us wondering what is going on. Fall weather is taking a vacation until the middle of next week.

What can we expect for the 2nd half of October? I'm doing the best I can with the data that's in front of me and trying to help you go WAY beyond the 7 day that we show on TV. It looks like warm weather is going to dominate and there's not much chance for significant rainfall between now and the end of the month. So let's concentrate on temperatures here. 

Now - Monday: Warmer than normal temperatures expected - dry and windy

Tuesday - Friday: Cooling off with near to below normal temperatures - dry and feeling like October

Saturday (Oct 22) - Tuesday (Oct 25) - Warming back up with highs near 80 degrees - unlikely for any 90s and still not much sign of any solid rainfall coming our way

Oct. 26/27 - There could be a cold front coming through on either one of these days, so that should send us back to October weather leading right up to Halloween. 

Oct 31 - It's looking like we will have mild/warm temperatures for Halloween. That will likely translate to highs in the 70s (maybe near 80) and I don't think there will be any rain to dampen the holiday.

As I've mentioned before, I enjoy long range forecasting. It's not a perfect science, but the data is getting better. I'm also going to be working on a winter forecast, but that won't come out until mid to late November.