October is a fickle, transitional and rather moody month which can display tranquillity or energy of destructive force. This time of year, there’s a battle between incoming winter and outgoing summer.

There’s no denying that it’s mild by late October standards. Night temps this week are about where they should be by day. 19-21C is more what you’d expect in mid-September. When you think of Halloween, you typically think of wrapping the kids up warm for trick or treating but this year, like last year shows no chill in the air.

This mild end to October will make for a 2nd mild Halloween in a row but nowhere near as extreme as 2014.

GFS and ECMWF surface and temperatures charts for upcoming Halloween.

GFS Saturday PM temps

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ECMWF surface for Halloween

Saturday PM temps

This mild pattern is all courtesy of the positioning of low pressure to the west and high pressure to the east is drawing warm Mediterranean air northwards but it’s not entirely unusual.

Keep in mind that October is a transition month and has it’s extremes as warm, humid and cold, dry air masses fight it out. Southern Europe and Med tends to still be quite warm while Scandinavia and Russia see snow cover expand and cold build.

It ultimately depends on the upper air pattern which of course varies year by year. Some October’s are mild, some cold, some wet, some dry. Some are stormy, recall the storm of 87?

Just like October can bring the first cold and snow spells of winter, October can, more often than you’d think, bring last gasp summer-like warm spells.

Halloween in London 2014

Very different story in late October 2008 with London seeing their first October snow in 74 years!

Unusual warmth and very wet weather can at times push in via ex tropical storms or hurricanes, lifting tropical heat and humidity into the increasingly colder mid-latitudes. This can lead to significant storms like the 1987 storm above.

We can still have warm conditions down in the Med and waters are often still quite warm following the heat of summer  and so when you get

Last October was warm and wet and ended with the warmest Halloween on record.

Forecasted temps for Halloween 2014.

A new all-time UK record high for Halloween of 23.6C was set at Kew Gardens, London and Gravesend, Kent surpassing the old Halloween record set in 1968 of 20.0C set a Dartford, Kent.

Maximum temperatures in the Anglia region on 31 October 2014

There’s huge variability even on the warm end of the October scale with 2014 producing the warmest Halloween on record and though warm it was behind 10 other warmer Octobers. 2001 saw the warmest October for the UK on record while 2011 saw the warmest October day with 29.9C on the 1st.

Look at the variation in above and below average Octobers starting with the warmest back in 2001. The below also shows that a warm October DOESN’T NESSESARILY MEAN A WARM WINTER. Look at October 2009.

Following a warm and dry opening 15 days to October 2015, it’s actually below normal over the southern UK while slightly above normal across the north. If the mild of the final week pushes the UK mean for October 2015 above average, this would mark the 3rd straight above normal October, possibly down to the combination of solar max and unusually warm water surrounding the UK during the past 3 autumn’s.

October so far.

See earlier video for the discussion.

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Tags: halloween, halloween forecast, halloween weather, uk weather