We're entering the season when the question invariably arises: "Where did the summer go?" or, more likely, "Where did the summer wages go?"
It's transition time between summer and winter, when the days are decidedly shorter and dark holds back the arrival of the sun each day, just a whisker at a time until you compare the sunrise of today with that of just two weeks ago.
It's the season when Christmas displays have crowded out the Halloween goodies, tempting shoppers to begin making lists, checking them twice and wondering how the intake will cover the outflow in the family budgeting process.
But there's more to the todays of late October and early November: The annual craft shows have come and gone. Jackets and hand warmers appear at football games, and leaves ... the leaves start hiding the lawns while bare limbs prepare the mind for even darker and sometimes drearier winter days.
It is also a time to look back at the months that have almost slipped by so quickly, particularly those summer days. Kids settle in for bus rides in the dark. Furnaces and car antifreeze need checking. And, of course, you can look up at a chilly, cloud-free night sky and watch Orion as he strides across the heavens every night.
Yes, there's more. It's time to wonder how this year, this past summer, seemed so different from many of the past. How quickly we forget from one year to the next; but didn't summer 2015 seem a bit unusual?
The year started out dry, a continuation of the year just past which ended with a 7-inch moisture deficit. 2014 bordered on a severe drought and 2015 was beginning to continue the pattern. January and February were dry; March and April were basically average. It was May that finally turned things around; 10.16 inches of rain fell -- a near record. June was so-so and then July came along. Missing were the 90 and often 100-degree days, and rain? It rained almost 8 inches during the usually dry month.
Lawn mowers purred regularly throughout the month and into August, which is always a scorcher, at least up until Gravette Day. And it was August 9 this year when the thermometer hit the century mark, the first and only time all year. August, the only month without a national holiday, edged into a new school year, moving quietly toward another drying-out pattern. Plants in newly planted fall gardens required regular visits from hoses as they struggled in their search for natural falling moisture.
It was as October progressed that the boob tube weather gurus began noticing the lack of rainfall as they settled on the hot flash that hit the area October 15. The temperature peaked on 91 degrees. A record, they reported. It was also 91 degrees at Gravette NOAA weather station that day, compounded by a near month-long dry spell when just 1/10 of an inch of moisture fell. A new mini-drought cycle was continuing.
The 91 degrees was a record for that day, but not for the month of October. A check of local records back more than 60 years revealed the hottest October day in Gravette was 94 degrees, which also sizzled the entire region on Oct. 24, 1931, right in the middle of the drought-stricken depression days. Both Oct. 24, 1939, and Oct. 31, 1965, tied this year's 91 degree reading. In comparison, Oct. 15 last year saw a so-so 68 degrees as the high.
This brings us up-to-date when last week a 3/4-0f-an-inch rain broke the local dry spell. Some areas received more, others less. A complete turnaround compared to last October's more than 9 inches, almost half of which fell on Oct. 10. Mother Nature can be so unpredictable. Weather prognosticators can only prognosticate. Early on last week some predicted heavy rains from the remnants of the storm that hit the western coast of Mexico. Now, as this is written on Sunday, Northwest Arkansas will get very little or none. So goes the moisture flow.
But as of today, temperatures have cooled to seasonal norms. The date has not experienced frost, except perhaps in low-lying areas. And the typical first killing frost, which normally occurs about Nov. 1, may or may not happen. Last year Nov. 1 was the date followed by 10 degrees on Nov. 18, the coldest blast until January 8 of this year.
Precipitation-wise, thanks to May and July, the area is slightly above normal for the year, 41.38 inches. Only 3 1/2 inches is needed to meet the average annual precip total, 44.88 inches.
Woolly worms and persimmon seeds, which are touted as weather predictors, as are hornets' nests, have sent mixed signals for the remainder of this winter. My prediction: "Unsettled." What's yours?
Dodie Evans is a former owner and long-time editor of the Gravette News Herald. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 10/28/2015