‘Abnormally warm’: Wichita and Kansas see record heat Tuesday. Here’s the reason why

Wichita saw a record high temperature Tuesday with the potential for more extreme heat in the coming days.

Around 4:45 p.m., the temperature at Wichita’s official gauging site, Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport, hit 88 degrees, surpassing the previous Oct. 22 record set just last year of 87 degrees — which was also reached on Oct. 22 in 2022, 2020 and 1899, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Kleinsasser in Wichita.

Those records in Wichita date back to 1888.

Kansas has official weather sites at the airports in Russell, Salina and Chanute, which also broke its Oct. 22 record with 93 degrees. The previous record was 88 degrees on Oct. 22, 1939.

Meanwhile, a cold-front moved in Tuesday night, but it won’t last long.

That’s Kansas for ya.

Wichita could also see a record high on Thursday, Oct. 24, followed by a cold front that night, which will give the area more normal-ish temperatures for this time of year through the weekend, before another possible record on Monday, Oct. 28.

The current Oct. 24 record is 89 degrees set in 1939. The current forecast calls for a high of 89 degrees around 4 p.m.

“We could be breaking that record tomorrow,” Kleinsasser said.

Wichita’s Oct. 28 record is currently 83 degrees set in 2016. The high forecast for Monday is also 83 degrees, he said.

Normal for this time of year are highs around 66 to 68 degrees.

“This is fairly, abnormally warm,” he said.

To get more technical on the cause, he said, there is a “big ridge of high pressure” which is called a “thick atmosphere” and 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 about for families trick-or-treating on Halloween?

Kleinsasser said a lot can change by then, but the NWS believes it will be more normal for this time of year, with temperatures in the 50s to low 60s that evening.

“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.”

This story was originally published October 23, 2024 at 11:33 AM.