On any given day in September, our weather can vary from fairly hot to quite cold. September extremes in the past have an 85-degree range from 102 degrees to 17. October extremes are even wilder, varying 101 degrees from 97 to minus 4. Even mundane autumn weather patterns in our region will often produce relatively wild temperature swings. However, one thing is as steady as it is inevitable. The nights grow longer while the days get shorter. The amount of daylight decreases by more than three minutes per day this time of year.
On Halloween, there is an hour and 45 minutes less daylight than today. The shorter days mean considerably less solar energy is received at the earth鈥檚 surface, which leads to colder weather and, eventually, winter. As weather systems blow this way and that, the weather may turn warmer or colder day by day, but the overall trend this time of year will always be toward colder.
