Wichita broke another October heat record; second one this week, weather service says
Wichita broke a decades-old weather record Thursday — for the hottest Oct. 24 since 1939.
The prior record of 89 degrees was set on Oct. 24, 1939, National Weather Service in Wichita archives show.
Those records in Wichita date back to 1888.
Thursday’s predicted high was 90. The actual high was 92, the NWS said on X shortly before 3 p.m.
This marks the second day this week that Wichita has broken a heat record. Tuesday hit 88 degrees, surpassing the previous Oct. 22 record of 87 degrees set last year and equaled in 2022, 2020 and 1899, Wichita NWS meteorologist Andy Kleinsasser said.
Highs around 66 to 68 degrees are normal for this time of year, he said.
“This is fairly, abnormally warm,” he said.
To be more technical, he said there is a “big ridge of high pressure” called a “thick atmosphere” that is conducive to warmer temperatures.
If this same thing happened just months ago, it would have caused a widespread heat wave with temperatures in the 100s, he said.
So what’s in store for Halloween trick-or-treating?
Kleinsasser said a lot can change by then, but the NWS thinks it will be closer to normal for this time of year, with temperatures in the 50s to low 60s the evening of Oct. 31.
“As far as Halloween goes, at this point we are calling for a dry forecast,” he said. “It doesn’t look like there is any major cool-down or warm snap. So hopefully trick-or-treating temperatures will be around normal … (but) that’s a long, long way out from a weather forecasting standpoint.”
Contributing: Michael Stavola of The Wichita Eagle
This story was originally published October 24, 2024 at 5:55 PM.