The average low temperature across the contiguous United States in October was 46.3 degrees F, which makes it the warmest set of October nights in the federal record. The margin over the previous mark, set in 1947, is just 0.1 degree. NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information released the finding in its monthly climate assessment, where it sits beside an otherwise warm but not record-setting daytime picture.
Help yourself and the planet: The Cool Down makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet, with smart, simple changes to save more and waste less in your everyday life.
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
46.3 degrees F and the 1947 mark
NCEI’s Assessing the U.S. Climate in October 2026 puts the national average minimum temperature at 46.3 degrees F, 4.9 degrees above the 20th-century average, in a record that stretches back 132 years. A tenth of a degree is a thin lead, but the ranking is unambiguous in the agency’s own tables, and it is the fourth month in a row, July through October 2026, in which the national average nighttime minimum has set a record for its month.
Overnight lows matter because they measure how much heat the ground, buildings and air shed after sunset. A warm night leaves less relief after a hot day and keeps heating systems idle longer in autumn, which is why minimum temperatures are tracked separately from the daily average. In a month when the mean ranked fourth rather than first, the nighttime series is the one that reached the top of the record, and it has done so four months running as summer slid into fall.
Comparing the two series in NCEI’s October national climate report shows where the heat concentrated. The monthly mean ran 4.6 degrees above average while the nighttime minimum ran 4.9 degrees above, so the lows outpaced the daily average by 0.3 degree. The 1947 record that fell had stood for 79 years. The 0.1-degree edge over it is thin, so the full report due Nov. 13 is the place to look for the state-by-state detail behind the national number.
Daytime was warm, nights were the record
The contiguous states averaged 58.7 degrees F for the month, 4.6 degrees above the 20th-century average. That ranks fourth-warmest among the 132 Octobers on file. All 48 contiguous states finished above their long-term baselines, and 30 of them landed in the much-above-average category.
The streak behind the month is long. October was the 21st consecutive month, from February 2025 through October 2026, with a national average above the 20th-century mean. Precipitation tells a less extreme story: the national average was 2.35 inches, 0.19 inch above normal, which falls in the middle third of the record, though regional totals varied sharply.
Isaias, the Southwest rains and Hawaii’s record year
Hurricane Isaias, a Category 2 storm that made landfall near Destin, Florida, added to Southeast rainfall and also marked the latest first Atlantic hurricane of the satellite era, which began in 1966. In the Southwest, October averaged 2.68 inches, 233% of normal, tying for the region’s fourth-wettest October. Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada each ranked among their ten wettest on record, while northern California, the Pacific Northwest and parts of the northern Plains, Mississippi Valley, Midwest and Northeast ran drier than average.
Hawaii and Alaska did not escape the warmth. Alaska averaged 30.4 degrees F, 4.9 degrees above its 1925-2000 mean, which sits in the warmest third of its 102-year record. Hawaii averaged 69.0 degrees F, 0.7 degree above its 1991-2020 mean, and tied its warmest October minimum on record at 1.8 degrees above average and counted 8.65 inches of rain, the third-wettest October, helped by Hurricane Nolo passing to the south. Its January-October rainfall total reached 95.31 inches, the wettest such span on record there.
The near-term pattern leans the same direction. The U.S. Drought Monitor’s national summary says the 6-10 day outlook for Nov. 10-14 favors above-normal temperatures across nearly the entire contiguous country, with the wettest odds in northern California and southwestern Oregon.
Dryness and warmth did not travel together everywhere. NCEI says contiguous-U.S. drought coverage fell from 59% on Sept. 29 to 44% on Nov. 3, the lowest since late January, even as drought persisted in the Pacific Northwest, Great Basin, Upper Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and far Northeast and expanded across the lower and middle Mississippi Valley and the lower Ohio and Tennessee valleys.
November outlook and the full report due Nov. 13
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has issued its 30-day outlook as of Oct. 31, and NCEI’s summary says above-average November temperatures are favored across most of the contiguous states and Alaska, with exceptions in parts of the Southwest and southern Plains. Wetter-than-average conditions are favored across much of the West, Plains, South and Southeast.
The wider ocean-climate setting is an El Niño; the Climate Prediction Center’s Oct. 8 discussion reports an advisory with the Nino-3.4 index at +2.1 degrees C. NCEI is scheduled to publish the complete U.S. climate report on Nov. 13 through its monthly report pages, and the Climate at a Glance tool lets anyone check the 132-year October minimum series against the 46.3 figure.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
Help yourself and the planet: Get The Cool Down →
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
More from Morning Overview
- Shaq spent $1.3 million on three Rolls-Royce Phantoms to prove a point to a salesman
- Over 20 trillion gallons of rain fell on the Four Corners states and Nevada in two weeks
- A handful of car transmissions are so tough that mechanics say they almost never die
- Two Kentucky residents died when a small plane crashed at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, and the NTSB is investigating
