November was warm, even for the Valley

You can’t blame people around here if they have a short memory regarding the weather lately.

After a long hot summer, temperatures remained higher than normal deep into October (it was 100 degrees on Oct. 27) and the start of November.

But as folks dug deep in their closets to pull out jackets and sweaters to fend off the chilly morning weather this week, it would be easy to forget that

not long ago it was 90 degrees. Phoenix temperatures ranged from the Nov. 8 Election Day high of 90 to the Nov. 30 low of 41. While that 49-degree span might feel extreme, it’s not that unusual. This year it just happened a little later than normal, said Austin Jamison, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Phoenix.

“When you look at climatology through all the years, October tends to be the month with the biggest dropoff,” Jamison said. “We didn’t quite have that this year. October was pretty warm. (October temperatures) trended down toward the end, but the big drop-off was delayed. (The November temperature span) is notable, but it’s not unheard of or exceedingly rare.”

Even with the cool end to the month, this will go down as one of the warmest Novembers on record. The average temperature (combining the average high and average low and dividing by two) for the month was 67.2 degrees. That ranks sixth on the all-time list of average temperatures for November and is 3.1 degrees above normal for the month.

Driving that figure were some of the warmest overnight lows ever recorded for Phoenix in November. The average minimum temperature for November at Sky Harbor Airport was 56.5 degrees, which is third on the alltime list and 3.8 degrees above normal. The average high temperature for the month, 77.9 degrees, did not crack the top 10 for that category. However, that average high was 2.4 degrees above normal for the month. Rainfall was a little above normal at 0.68 inch, 0.05 inch higher than average.

Jamison said the cooldown was the result of seasonal weather patterns, such as the cold front early this week that brought lower temperatures and rain, taking control.

“When you look at climatology through all the years, October tends to be the month with the biggest drop-off. We didn’t quite have that this year. October was pretty warm.” AUSTIN JAMISON NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGIST

NICK OZA/THE REPUBLIC Painters work on some final touches Wednesday at the Renaissance hotel in downtown Phoenix. November started warm, with a big temperature drop-off near the end.