Well, here we are. Let's take a look into the meteorological crystal ball....
The first day of autumn (or fall, depending on what you call it) is tomorrow. Usually, as we head into October and November, temperatures cool down and in some places get downright frigid. Unfortunately, the key term here is usually. Climatologically speaking, we have had one of our hottest years on record in the U.S. and that trend looks like it will continue through the rest of the year. 2010 has already tied 1998 for hottest global year on record, and will most likely surpass 1998 as we wrap the year up.
We have had record SSTs as well, which has contributed greatly to hurricane formation in the Atlantic this hurricane season. You've probably noticed how quickly things have intensified, and how we've had several storms stronger than usual in places where they normally aren't.
Getting back to our topic, here is the current outlook for temperature and precipitation probabilities in the U.S. for the period from October through December:
Temps:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/lead01/off01_temp.gif
Precip:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/lead01/off01_prcp.gif
