By Clint Thompson
As if most did not already realize, October was really warm across the Southeast. In fact, it was toasty across the entire U.S.
Pam Knox, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension agricultural climatologist, noted in her UGA Extension Climate Blog, that October 2024 was the second warmest October on record since 1895.
Adding to the unexpected heat wave, a record 87% of the contiguous U.S. was in a drought or experiencing abnormally dry conditions. This included most of the Southeast, except for Florida when Hurricane Milton brought excessive rainfall after making landfall on Oct. 9.
“Normally, October’s a pretty dry month, and if you have a lot of sunshine coming in as you do when you have high pressure day after day, that tends to warm things up. We’ve also been pretty dry, which helps to drop the temperatures a little bit at night but also allows the temperatures to go up during the day,” Knox said. “I don’t think we would attribute all of it necessarily to global warming, but that’s certainly part of the answer.”
Knox’s assessment was based off the monthly climate summary for the United States that was released by National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).