By Rick Steelhammer, Charleston Gazette-Mail
October’s arrival in West Virginia feels more like the dog days of summer than the traditional time to search closets and dressers for long-sleeved shirts and sweaters.
After three West Virginia cities endured their hottest Septembers on record, record-high temperatures for both Oct. 1 and the entire month of October were set Tuesday in five of the six communities the National Weather Service’s Charleston Forecast Office monitors for official daily climate data.
Huntington, Beckley and Clarksburg posted record-high mean temperatures for the month of September, while the month was the second-warmest on record in Elkins, third-hottest ever in Charleston and tied for the fourth-warmest in Parkersburg.
On Tuesday, record high temperatures for both Oct. 1 and the entire month of October were set in Huntington, Beckley, Clarksburg, Parkersburg and Elkins. A new high-temp record for Oct. 1 was also set in Charleston, where it reached 93 degrees, breaking by one degree a previous record set 100 years earlier. However, Charleston did not surpass its record high temperature (96 degrees) for the month of October set in 1903. …
