Perfect skies this past September week continue into the first weekend of the new month with lows in the 50s and highs in the 80s! This is why we call it Aaahhhh-ctober! We don’t always start with a sigh of relief, but right now we’re feeling a “latte” pumpkin love from Mother Nature!
The truth is that the high bringing us such nice skies and cool, dry air is “stuck” for a bit as our neighbors to the east deal with Hurricane Ian and then a high dropping down from Canada. That’s gridlock benefitting us. I have had a viewer question already asking if the lack of rain is a concern. Yesterday’s drought monitor showed this:
Recommended Videos
Areas around Austin County still show up as extremely dry, so we could use some rain there. For most of us, we should be able to get by for at least a while with dry conditions. Let’s hope so -- long range models show virtually no rain through the middle of October. Here’s the American model -- look for the green (and there isn’t much):
As for temperatures this month, the 30-day forecast from the Climate Prediction Center calls for a little above-average, which is from 87 degrees right now dropping to 78 by Halloween!
In the skies this month, you may have already noticed a gleaming Jupiter up there along with a beautiful waxing moon! I took this shot last night!
You may be able to see Saturn the 4th and 5th of the month near the Gibbous Moon while Jupiter is right next to the full moon the 7th and 8th (the moon is actually full at 3:55 p.m. the 9th).
October’s full moon is coined the Hunter’s moon. Sometimes this is the harvest moon but the harvest moon is based on whichever full moon falls closest to the autumnal equinox and September’s full moon occurred Sept. 10 -- 12 days from the Sept. 22 equinox. October’s moon on the 9th is 17 days from the 22nd, so it came in as the hunter’s moon. WHY is that the way it is? Trust me, I hunted everywhere for that answer and harvested nothing. It just is. Every three years, the harvest moon falls in October, but not this year. However, due to the moon’s ecliptic path around the Earth this time of year, the moon does tend to rise earlier in the evening than other months (thus more moonlight for harvesting and hunting!).
Two nice meteor showers show up this month, the Draconids is first on the 8th and 9th but, with the moon becoming full, that might be a tough sell. The Orionids are toward the end of the month, the 20th and 21st. Look after midnight and before dawn!
Enjoy these ahhhh-ctober days. They can disappear as quickly as a shooting star!
Frank