Fourth Wettest September

By Russell Russ

In an odd fashion, early September was more summer-like than most of August. August’s high temperature of 80 degrees was reached just once during that month. To the contrary, September had five days above 80 degrees in nearly the first week. Temperatures turned more seasonal after mid-month.

The real story for September was the rain. After a nice Labor Day weekend, most other weekends were wet—oftentimes real wet. People do not seem to mind, or may even prefer, snow on a weekend, but rain is another story.

The month’s high temperature of 88 degrees was observed on Sept. 7. It was a daily record high for that date, beating the 86 degrees recorded in both 2007 and 2015. The month’s low of 39 degrees was observed on Sept. 27. The average monthly mean temperature of 61.2 degrees was 2.2 degrees above normal, but it was not high-ranking.

Norfolk’s warmest September was in 2015 with a mean temperature of 64.7 degrees and the coolest was in 1963 with 53.6 degrees. It is fairly normal for some parts of Norfolk to see a few frosts in September, but that was not the case this year. To wrap up summer totals as recorded at the weather station, there were no days with 90 degrees or above in 2023. There are usually two to three such days per year. Temperatures reached 89 degrees on June 2; 88 degrees on July 6 and Sept. 7; and 87 degrees on April 14.

The month’s rainfall total was 11.33 inches, 6.66 inches above normal. It was another excessively wet month for 2023. Norfolk’s wettest September was in 1938 (Hurricane of ’38) with 13.40 inches and the driest was in 2014 with just 1.16 inches. Through September, the yearly precipitation was 54.38 inches, 15.36 inches above normal and 20.49 inches more than last year’s total through September. With three months still to go, Norfolk has already exceeded its normal yearly amount of precipitation (52.53 inches). Looking back at the last several years, it is interesting to note that precipitation totals through September seem to fluctuate from very dry to very wet each year.

In a preview of October’s weather, through Oct. 20, the temperature was about five degrees above normal, and precipitation was three inches below normal. With another wet weekend on tap for Oct. 21-22, it will be near average for rainfall. Norfolk could see its first snowflakes of the season in October. The 91-year average snowfall amount for October is 0.9 inch, but Norfolk has seen some amazing early season snows over the years. Ever since the record-shattering 23.8 inches in 2011, four Octobers have recorded a trace of snow: 2016 recorded 2.5 inches and 2020 recorded 4.6 inches. Time is running out for this October, but one could say we are overdue. 

Weather observations are recorded by the Great Mountain Forest at Norfolk’s National Weather Service Cooperative Weather Observer Station, Norfolk 2SW.