October 5, 1963: Warmth “without precedent”
Extreme warmth, centered over the Midwest, covered much of the country during October 1963.
Indian Summer, or as it is known in parts of Europe, St. Martin’s summer ended last evening (Don’t worry, that was just “phase 1” of Indian Summer. More phases will likely follow). It’s a period of warm weather that occurs after the first killing frost when the leaves have turned before the first snowfall.
It was more like traditional summer on October 5, 1963 when the temperature hit 80 degrees in Marquette.
October 1963 was non-stop Indian Summer. The U.S. Weather Bureau in Marquette summarized the month like this: “October’s record-shattering warm weather stands without precedent—the warmest in the past 88 years with an average temperature 2.4 degrees higher than that of any other October on record, and warmer than 70-percent of the Septembers since 1875. All but four days were above normal and over half of the days were at least ten degrees above normal.”
The mean temperature for the month in Marquette was an incredible 58 degrees. By way of comparison, the warmest October “on the hill” at the National Weather Service (NWS) near Negaunee is a mere 49.2 degrees set recently just five years ago in 2007. A tremendous warm spell was in progress at this time back in ’07 culminating in record highs of 84 on the 7th and 83 degrees on the 8th. While it cooled back some afterwards, there was no major cold snaps. After mid-month it still reached into the 60s on seven days.
Back in 1963, the warmth faded, but lingered into November. It came in at 5.5 degrees above average. There was a big flip during December as the mean temperature dropped to 5.2 degrees below normal.
The cold spell were in now is likely to last through next week. While there will be minor warm ups, temperatures will likely be below average through at least Friday. There are indications the pattern will shift to milder by next weekend.
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