October - Known For Large Temperature Spreads

Typically, the month of October is drier than other months of the year, especially around our part of the country. Summer is quickly losing fast hold of its dominance as daylight shortens and nighttime lengthens.

Interestingly, a drier ground can still produce very warm temperatures during the shortening day. However, during the night, the same dryness allows all of that heat to escape back into space thus producing cold readings.

I would like you to check out this site below sometime. The table may not contain all of the U.S. reporting stations, but there is still a lot of useful data.

If you're somewhat knowledgeable of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet, you can work with the data to find out the highest and lowest temperatures in the table and, one of my favorites, the temperature spread between the highest and lowest temperature of any one location. Of course, you would have to calculate that by inserting an additional column. Then use a VLOOKUP function to find the reporting station(s) that match(es) the largest spread in temperature.

For example, the high and low temperature at Hanksville UT on October 14 was 85 / 35. Therefore a 50-degree spread and one that proved to be the maximum spread of all locations listed in the table.

Here's the link to the table that I'm talking about...Click HERE.

Also, here's a sample of the table I'm talking about...

FILE FORMAT: FIRST RECORD IS DATE IN THE FORM YYYYMMDD. THE REMAINING RECORDS
CONTAIN MAXT(F),MINT(F),REPORTED AND ESTIMATED PRECIP IN HUNDRETHS OF INCHES,
9 WEATHER CHARACTERS,ID AND CITY NAMES WHERE AVAILABLE.
*****NOTE***************NOTE*********************NOTE********************
20111014
30 27 3 3 9SSSF/SRL70026 AK BARROW/W.POST W.ROGERS
39 32 0 0 9////////70104 AK CAPE_LISBURNE(AWOS)
39 35 0 0 9//RRR///70117 AK TIN_CITY_AFS_(AWOS)
36 33 23 23 9R///SSSS70133 AK KOTZEBUE/RALPH WIEN ME
34 29 0 0 9////////70173 AK INDIAN_MTN_AFS_AWOS
35 27 0 0 9SS////SS70174 AK BETTLES
36 32 0 0 9////////70178 AK TANANA/CALHOUN_MEM
36 21 0 0 9////////70194 AK FORT YUKON
44 33 0 0 9RR//////70200 AK NOME
43 36 0 0 9////////70204 AK GAMBELL_(AWOS)
43 34 0 0 9////////70207 AK UNALAKLEET
39 36 0 0 9//M/////70212 AK CAPE_ROMANZOFF_AWOS
41 38 55 55 9RRRRRR//70219 AK BETHEL
36 33 0 1 9RRSSSR/R70222 AK GALENA_AIRPORT
43 34 11 11 9/RRR/RR/70231 AK MCGRATH
48 36 0 0 9////////70232 AK ANIAK
49 40 0 0 9//RR////70235 AK SPARREVOHN_(AWOS)
37 27 0 0 9////////70246 AK MINCHUMINA
37 32 -999 1 9---SS/S-70249 AK PUNTILLA_(LAKE)
41 33 7 7 9R/SSR///70251 AK TALKEETNA
36 34 0 3 9---RRRR-70255 AK SKWENTNA
50 38 11 11 9/RRRR///70259 AK KENAI/MUNI
48 29 0 0 9////////70260 AK NENANA/MUNI
50 21 0 0 9////////70261 AK FAIRBANKS/INTL
49 20 0 0 9////////70265 AK EIELSON_AFB
46 24 1 1 9////////70267 AK BIG DELTA
44 20 1 1 9////////70271 AK GULKANA

The table looks intimidating, but the Excel spreadsheet really cleans it up nicely, making the data easy to work with.

MS