October’s temperature map has no blue on it. The Climate Prediction Center’s one-month outlook, the update it released at 3 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, favors above-normal warmth across most of the West and parts of the central and eastern United States, and nowhere in the country is tilted toward a cooler-than-average month. The wet side of the outlook runs along the southern tier, with the Gulf Coast carrying the strongest odds.
The forecast is a probability statement, not a day-by-day prediction, and its shape matters more than any single number. The temperature signal is broad and fairly gentle, while the precipitation signal is concentrated and front-loaded. The pairing explains why the Gulf Coast could see a soaking early in the month and still finish within a warm-leaning pattern, since the outlook assigns probabilities to monthly totals and averages rather than to individual storms.
Warmth across the West and into the Plains
In its prognostic discussion for October, the Climate Prediction Center, a part of NOAA’s National Weather Service, puts the strongest warmth signal over California, western Nevada, southern Oregon and the Florida Peninsula. Northern and central Plains states also lean above normal. Forecaster Anthony Artusa wrote the discussion and credited a strong El Nino, plus drought that is intensifying across southern regions, with enhancing the warm tilt.
The wording is narrower than a blanket “warm West.” The same discussion assigns equal chances of above, near and below normal temperatures to parts of the interior West and much of Alaska, meaning the outlook sees no reliable lean there. A outlook explainer by Rebecca Lindsey, reviewed by Warren Blier, describes above-normal temperatures as favored for nearly all areas west of the Continental Divide and notes that nowhere in the country is favored for a cooler-than-average October.
Rain from the Southern Plains to the Gulf
On precipitation, the discussion expects above-normal totals across the southern tier, from southern Arizona through the Southern Plains to the Gulf Coast. Odds of an above-normal month reach 50 to 80 percent near the Gulf and across the Texas Hill Country, and the center says the wet pattern is concentrated in the first 7 to 10 days of October. Lindsey’s write-up places the wettest odds from Texas to western Florida and into the Southeast.
The flip side sits further north. Below-normal precipitation is favored from the Upper Mississippi Valley and western Great Lakes region west-southwestward through the West and northern Rockies, a pattern the discussion links to high pressure. So the same outlook that is warm in the West is also dry across much of it, with California and the Southwest as the transitional zone where the southern storm track begins to matter. For a reader in Phoenix, Houston or Sacramento, the practical difference between those regions is large even though all three sit inside the same warm-leaning outlook.
The El Nino driving the pattern
The wet southern tier is the signature of a strong El Nino, and the Climate Prediction Center’s ENSO diagnostic discussion, issued September 10, 2026, keeps an El Nino Advisory in effect, reports sea surface temperature anomalies in the eastern equatorial Pacific above +3.0 degrees Celsius and a Nino-3.4 index of +1.8 degrees, and gives a greater than 90 percent chance of a very strong event this fall and winter. It puts the chance of a historically significant event, stronger than any since 1950, at 75 percent for October through December.
Lindsey’s explainer says the southern storm track commonly seen with strong El Ninos is already taking shape. That fits the center’s three-month outlook issued September 17, which put chances above 60 percent on above-normal precipitation in the eastern Gulf Coast region for October through December.
Which release carries which number
Two versions of the October outlook exist. The center’s first look, issued September 17, favored enhanced moisture from California northeast through the Four Corners and Great Plains to the Southeast, with 60 to 70 percent odds over parts of the Southeast coast, and flagged a negatively phased Pacific Decadal Oscillation that could dampen typical strong El Nino effects. The September 30 update shifted the emphasis to the southern tier and Gulf, which is why that issuance date is the one that governs.
The setup also arrives against a dry backdrop. As of September 24, Lindsey’s explainer reported, nearly 80 percent of the contiguous United States was abnormally dry or in drought, including 58 percent of hay acreage and 72 percent of cotton-growing area, and the outlook expects drought to improve or end across the Southwest, Southern Plains, Southeast and Northeast during October. The Climate Prediction Center’s next monthly outlook, for November, is scheduled for October 15, 2026, and it will show whether the Gulf Coast rain signal held beyond its first ten days.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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