If there's ever a year to complain about the lack of a fall season around here, this one may be the one.

After crushing record highs for September in Denver, the turn around in October was sudden and dramatic. Denver ended October -7.2°F below average for October, recording multiple record lows in the process –– including a low of just 3°F on October 30th. Compare that to the new record high for September (100°F set on September 2nd, 2019) in a month that ran 5.9°F above average, and you can easily see it's not just you, we truly have been on a weather roller coaster.

As a result, trees went from fully leafed and mostly green to brown almost overnight, leaving plenty of us wondering what happened to fall. It wasn't just the cold in October either that came as a jolt, but also one of the snowiest Octobers on record for many communities along the Front Range.

Statewide we saw the average temperature set a new record high for September, then fall to the 4th coldest on record for October:

Nationally, October was the 21st coolest on record, running -1.77°F below average, marking the coldest October for the CONUS since 2009.

For precipitation, we also saw a west/east flip between the months, though not so much for Colorado. Both September and October were drier than average across the state, with largely average precipitation across the region overall:

As for what might in store for the remainder of this month? As we outlined in our winter outlook yesterday, we expect plenty of cold to flood the pattern, with a bias toward the Eastern and Southeastern United States:

Looking at the next ten days the GFS shows some warmth pushing across Colorado from time to time, but plenty of cold pushing down the plains and into the east: