Review of fall weather in region: 'straight from summer to winter'

The fall season is history in the region. Winter officially arrived on Saturday, Dec. 21.

The National Weather Service office in Paducah reported on its website that the meteorological season of fall, from Sept. 1, through Nov. 30, that temperatures averaged out near normal for the fall season in Southern Illinois, Southeast Missouri and Western Kentucky.

The weather service noted that fall’s temperatures “were no where near normal the majority of the time.

“The short version is we went straight from summer to winter, with very little in between,” the weather service stated.

September into the first week of October were exceptionally warm, feeling much more like the middle of summer than fall. 

September ranked as the warmest on record in Cape Girardeau and the second warmest in Paducah.

This was followed by the warmest October temperatures on record at both locations on Oct. 2.

The pattern changed rather quickly though, with near record lows being observed down into the 20s on Halloween. 

Paducah had its coldest start to November on record through Nov. 18. 

Temperatures moderated during the last two weeks of the month though. 

November finished as the fourth coldest in Cape Girardeau and the ninth coldest in Paducah.

For the fall season, Paducah observed 31 days with high temperatures in the 60s or 70s, tying for the second fewest with 2018 and 1997. The record is 26 days set in fall of 1976.

Precipitation was above normal across the majority of the region, with 12 to 15 inches common across a large swath of the area. 

The highest total observed in the forecast area for the weather service office in Paducah was 18.6 inches at a CoCoRaHS station in Scott City, Mo. 

The exception to the wet conditions included portions of southeast Illinois and northwest Kentucky.These areas received near to slightly below normal precipitation amounts for the fall season. 

Several locations observed their driest September on record. 

Paducah went 29 days without any measurable rain, marking the longest dry stretch since 1999. But the year of plenty returned in October and November, making it a short-lived drought.

November Weather

Temperatures during November in the region  were well below normal by around 5 to 7 degrees. 

The brunt of the cold was focused over the first half of the month, before temperatures moderated during the last two weeks. 

In Paducah, temperatures were well below normal for 17 of the first 18 days of November. 

On Nov. 12, high temperatures remained in the 20s across the entire region, which was roughly 35 degrees below normal. 

This shattered the previous record cold high temperatures for that date. 

This was the earliest subfreezing high temperature on record in Paducah (26). 

Temperatures dipped into the teens and even a few single digit readings on the morning of Nov. 13. 

“It definitely felt like we were in the heart of winter,” the weather service noted.

November was another wet month, with wetter than normal conditions observed across the majority of our region. 

Portions of Southern Illinois were observing a fairly dry month until a heavy rain event at the end of the month. 

Many areas received over 6 inches of precipitation for the month, and a few locations topped 8 inches.

A rare early season snow event impacted the region on Veterans Day (Nov. 11), with 1 to 3 inches of snow across the region.

It was the third earliest measurable snow on record in Paducah (1.2 inches). This now marks the third time in six years with over 1 inch of snow in November in Paducah. 

From 1972 to 2013, no November experienced greater than 0.4 of an inch of snow.