After highs Monday about 15 degrees above average, temperatures in southern Idaho Tuesday should be below average. But so far, this fall has been unusually warm.
October days have averaged more than five-degrees warmer than what's typical for this time of year. Through Monday, there were only four days this month the Treasure Valley did not reach the 70s.
It’s been dry too. Usually October sees a little less than half-an-inch of rain, but National Weather Service forecaster Stephen Parker says through Monday, the Boise airport hadn’t even had enough rain to measure. Parker says that’s because for most of October there has been a ridge aloft.
“We often talk about weather features at the surface versus weather features aloft,” Parker says. “And a ridge aloft will allow warm air to come northward, and provide us with warm dry days, clear skies.”
Parker says a trough is now cooling things off, but that temperatures should warm back up by the end of the week. He says this month has been the start of what the weather service’s Climate Prediction Center thinks will be a warmer, dryer winter across much of the West.
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