Grab a pumpkin spice latte and your coziest flannel shirt, fall is officially here. But if you're not quite ready to say goodbye to those summertime vibes, you're in luck. Forecasters are predicting warmer-than-average temperatures all season.
"Fall is going to feel more like an extended summer for millions of Americans this year," AccuWeather lead long-range expert Paul Pastelok told USA Today. "Much of the country will experience a delayed transition to cooler temperatures this year, following a summer with intense heat."
September's warmth is expected to continue into October and November across most of the country before chillier temperatures start to arrive in December, according to an outlook released by The Weather Company and Atmospheric G2.
"Above-average temperatures are expected from the Southwest to the Plains, Midwest and Northeast over the rest of 2024," the outlook says. "The only exception may be in the Northwest, including Washington, parts of Oregon, northern Idaho and far northwest Montana, where temperatures over the last three months may run slightly below average."
Even when winter starts to set in, temperatures still won't be dropping to the degree we're used to seeing.
"It is rather difficult these days to forecast any sort of widespread below-normal temperatures in a seasonal forecast," Todd Crawford, Vice President of Meteorology at Atmospheric G2, wrote in the outlook. "It still seems like years since we've had a month cooler than (the) 30-year average."
That tracks with the seasonal forecast from the Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is predicting above average temperatures in nearly all 50 states.
The temperature outlook favors above-normal temperatures for the southwestern contiguous United States, the central and southern Rockies, southern Texas, the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and parts of the eastern Great
Lakes.
"The largest probabilities (greater than 60 percent) of above normal temperatures are forecast across much of the Southwest and parts of the Rio Grande Valley and southern High Plains," the center said.
Not only will it be warmer than usual, but it's also going to be drier across much of the country.
"The October precipitation outlook favors below-normal precipitation for an area from the Southwest U.S. and central Rockies eastward to include much of the central Plains and parts of the central Mississippi Valley," the Climate Prediction Center said.
Meantime, areas including the central and eastern Gulf coast, parts of the Southeast, mid-Atlantic coast and much of the Northeast could see above-normal precipitation, according to the outlook.
Forecasters are also predicting La Niña to form later this fall. The climate pattern is associated with a colder and stormier than average winter across the north, and warmer and drier winter across the south, NOAA explained.