Ormstown October weather

The first three weeks of October were lined up to become a fifty year record warm, but then the rainfall and winter temperatures hit.

It was a shock to go from a high of 28 degrees on Oct. 18 (likely a record for that date) down to a high of 3.5 degrees on Oct. 26.

The temperature change resulted in a monthly average of 9.6 compared to 2.9 last year and a ten year normal of 8.6. There have been fourteen warmer Octobers in the last fifty year. The fifty year record high was established in 1971 with 11.7.

Rainfall was sparse throughout the first three weeks but as the cooler temperatures arrived on Oct. 26, Ormstown received 119 mm. or 4.7 inches in 72 hours. The ground was so dry that within three days, the puddles were gone and the combines could come out of the shed.

The only problem was that the soybeans, that were still unharvested, had picked up moisture forcing a lot of farmers to put on the corn head to start corn harvest. There are still a lot of beans to be harvested by months end in the Ormstown area. The total rainfall for October was 175 mm. or 6.9 inches.

I recalled a month of August that had been very wet a long time ago. That turned out to be 1972 when we received 7.3 inches for the month of which 4.5 inches fell in 48 hours. Very little land was tile drained in this area in 1972, and I recall that we never recovered from the excess rainfall all fall. I think that was the year that I picked the grain corn with halftracks on the tractor and my records indicate that by Nov. 20 we had 4 inches of snow on the ground and 18 inches on Dec. 16. Thank Goodness for climate change to avoid a repeat of such conditions!

The killing frost this year was on Oct. 14 compared to the average date of Oct. 9. We received 3440 heat units for the summer, while average is 3239. The combination of timely rains with lots of heat has produced a crop of grain corn averaging about 5 metric tons or 197 bushel per acre.

                              October

                   Average temperature