Monday, November 4, 2013

October 2013 Summary

A warm month that was the second wettest ever in the region

It might be hard to believe with the cold end to the month, but overall it was almost 2 degrees warmer than average.  There was quite a difference between the first 10 days of the month, at about 2 degrees below average, and the first 20 days, which were about 4 degrees above average.

The temperature went below zero for the first time since the spring during the morning of October 29th.  The last freezing temperature we saw was back on April 26th, resulting in a growing season of 186 days, the longest we have seen at the UW weather station.

Back in July, the 173.0 mm was the most ever seen in the 15 year history of the UW weather station, but now October comes along with 181.4 mm.  The last day was the wettest of the month (37.3 mm) and also the wettest single October day in UW weather station history.  Incidentally, it was also the second wettest October since records began in the region about 100 yeas ago (wettest was 1958 with 190.8 mm).

After such a wet of month, this is now far and away the most precipitation in the first 10 months of the year and we are closing in on the wettest year.  At the end of October we are at 1085.7 mm, which means we only need about 100 mm in the last 2 months to make it the wettest year ever in the area.


Summary for October 2013:
Maximum Temperature 24.0°C
Minimum Temperature -3.2°C
Average Daily High Temperature 14.9°C (Long term average 13.2°C)
Average Daily Low Temperature 5.1°C (Long term average 2.9°C)
Total Precipitation 181.4 mm (Long term average 67.1 mm)

(Long term averages based on 1971-2000 data for the Waterloo Wellington Airport)


Friday, November 1, 2013

Are you ready for the darkest morning of the year?

The official sunrise time for Waterloo on November 2nd will be 7:59 am, because we go back to standard time on Sunday morning, it turns out that this will be the latest the sun will rise this season (also later than anytime in 2013, but also later than in January of 2014 as well).

Although the earth's inclination will cause the sunrise time to gradually get later and later and it will get close to 7:59 am (7:55 am in early January) it will never be as late as it will be on November 2nd.

By the way, as daylight saving time comes in well before the summer solstice, a similar thing doesn't happen 6 months from now.