No, you weren’t just imagining things: it definitely was colder and drier than normal in October, at least for a good portion of Wyoming.
The National Weather Service in Riverton announced Monday morning that its October climate summary showed some record high and low temperatures throughout the month.
Greybull, the Riverton airport, Rock Springs and Worland set cold temperature records last weekend when an early winter storm hit much of the state. Worland was down to -18 from -4 in 2019, Rock Springs was down to -10 from -8 in 2019, Riverton tied with its previous record, -9, from last year and Greybull was down to -8 from 3 in 2019.
It was the fourth coldest October on record for Greybull, fifth for Worland and the Riverton airport and the sixth for Buffalo, the Weather Service said.
Most locations tracked by the Riverton NWS office also received less than an inch of precipitation over the month, with the only exceptions being Lake Yellowstone and Buffalo.
This was the third driest October on record for Big Piney and fourth driest at the Riverton airport.
Wyoming meteorologist Don Day noted in his Monday morning forecast that as Wyoming enters the month of November, it would see warmer temperatures and gorgeous weather.
But then, the winter weather will again arrive.
“This is the way it’s gone this fall, we have these long stretches of above-average temperatures,” Day said. “It’s actually really good, then all of the sudden: the hammer comes down. We get arctic air, we get snowed on and then it gets nice again.”
