Fall Foliage With TR27: A Break From Summer (09.19.25)

A Break From Summer

Update 19 of the 2025 season of Fall Foliage With TR27

09.19.25

Today's weather, much like the entire week's weather, was another beautiful summer-style day with temps in the low 80s and lots of sunshine, but much like 2024, September 19 would mark the end of such weather. Tomorrow brings us temps around 10 degrees cooler and for basically the entire 2 week period from 9/20-10/3, temps will get stuck in the 70s, with the only real chance at hitting 80 again being on 9/23, but considering stormy weather is now expected, if it comes earlier than expected (by a few hours), temps might not make it to 80, and some forecasts are now calling for "only" upper 70s that day. To be clear, we shouldn't be having anymore 80-degree days this late in the year, but moving on with constant 70s is going to feel like paradise, though in no case should temps stabilize like that over such a long period especially at these times of year, where temps are supposed to crash in September/October and skyrocket in March/April. Enjoy this upcoming weather!

Here's the summary and fall foliage pics below:

For today, day 19:

High: 81°F

Average: 72°F

(+9)

By September 25th, ANY reading of 80 or above will be at least red tier territory (11-20°F above average) since September 24 is the last day with an average of 70, so there's a good chance that quite a bit of the upcoming forecast (especially the end of it and 9/23) will be orange tier (6-10°F above average) territory and potentially red tier (11-20°F above average) territory as well. As great as warm weather is, it is time for such weather to depart until next spring. As much as I love summer and warm weather, after September, it should be gone, and I already saw a video on Facebook by a meteorologist that said that fall weather will likely not arrive until October, so it will be a while. At this point, make September a summer month! The forecast below pretty much proves it!

The expected forecast from 9/20-10/3:

9/20: ☀️ 72/41

9/21: ⛅ 72/42

9/22: ⛅ 75/55

9/23: ⛈️ 81/59 (39%)

9/24: ⛅ 77/56

9/25: 🌥️ 72/56

9/26: 🌧️ 75/59 (33%)

9/27: 🌧️ 75/59 (31%)

9/28: 🌧️ 76/54 (30%)

9/29: ⛅ 72/47

9/30: ⛅ 73/48

10/1: ⛅ 74/50

10/2: ⛅ 74/49

10/3: ⛅ 73/49

This forecast is an improvement from yesterday. The entirety of the forecast is still expected to be 70+ degrees, but it now appears that instead of temps racing towards 80 at the beginning of October like they were expected to yesterday, it looks like they will remain stableish in the low to mid-70s, still quite warm for October but considering the average high is mid/upper 60s for the beginning of October, this is an improvement in terms of the climate, but this is still 14 days out, so it is prone to change, the forecast for 10/3 earlier today was calling for a high of 69, the first high only in the 60s in the forecast, and though that would be basically normal for the time of year, it has now been adjusted to 73, which considering the day before (yesterday's forecasted high for 10/2) was expected to be 78, these readings make sense, and though a 5 degree drop in 24 hours is significant, it makes more sense than a 10 degree drop in that said timeframe!

Here's the main pic and fall foliage pics taken today, 9/19/25:

Losing its leaves, already?! Geez! 😭

I skipped campus pics today since I wasn't as focused on taking pics as I usually am. Straight to Northampton, MA we go!

This captures fall foliage in the PERFECT way, top to bottom just like that! Absolutely stunning! 🤩🤩🤩

Color starting to show up in Easthampton, MA!

This tree is still beautiful and is at peak, but I wouldn't be surprised if the color starts to wane before we get to October, after all, this IS its peak and peak foliage usually only lasts a week or two!

Starting to look more yellow than green in the back of The Water's Fine in Easthampton, MA!

Absolutely gorgeous!

That's got to be an amazing pic!

Once again, this isn't a fall foliage pic, but this is the hours of operation sign at Mt. Tom's Ice Cream in Easthampton, MA. Right after Labor Day, I saw this sign up and when I asked when they would start fall hours, they told me usually late September. Since it is now September 19th, I figured I would get one last pic of the summer operating hours sign, since they will probably change it in the next week if not tomorrow or Sunday, and I won't get another chance to get a pic of it until summer '26 once they change the sign to the new hours! Considering that the temp drops from 81-82 today to 72 tomorrow, today was a perfect "last day of summer" vibe, however, it looks like September 23 will get that vibe, even though that's the first full day of fall, it will be in the lower 80s and more humid with a possibility of some needed thunderstorms. Considering that, since the following day is expected to be upper 70s and have less of a chance for rain, I feel like September 24 will be the summer sendoff weather, but with the entirety of the forecast STILL 70+°F by that point, is it REALLY a sendoff at that point? It looks like sometime between October 1 and Columbus Day (October 13) will be the true sendoff, and that is incredibly late, I'm struggling to see homes with their pools still open at this point and we haven't even hit the equinox yet! It looks like those 40s at night are hitting the water temps HARD, and considering nights are getting longer and longer, pool season just might be over at this point! I'll give up on encouraging people to keep their pools open now since it is their choice, but what I do encourage is that if you live in the New England area and are considering covering/removing your AC until the spring, I would encourage holding off on that, because even though ACs can TOTALLY be off this weekend, we get back to nights with temps closer to 60, which are harder to get through compared to nights in the 40s like now.

People should keep their ACs in, because if they cover/close them and late September and/or October/November delivers a heat spell (which it looked like it WOULD just yesterday!), then they will really regret their decision.

Let's take last October. On October 13, 2024 (the day before Columbus Day), the official high at Westover AFB was only 49°F (that is dark blue territory at 13°F BELOW average, average is 62 on October 13) and considering that was Columbus Day weekend, people likely thought cold weather was here to stay. That was, until it WASN'T.

If you covered/removed your AC by October 13, 2024, here are some hot days you likely wanted to use your now nonexistent AC and ended up regretting your decision to close up "shop":

Oct 20, 2024: 75°F

Oct 21, 2024: 86°F

Oct 22, 2024: 82°F

Oct 23, 2024: 79°F

Oct 31, 2024: 81°F

Nov 1, 2024: 81°F

Nov 5, 2024: 75°F

Nov 6, 2024: 83°F

Yikes! Though 2024 was an EXTREME example, the weather no longer "behaves by the rules", and honestly, IT NEVER DID.

2011: A snowstorm in late October that cancelled Halloween due to FEET of snow that fell and knocked out power for DAYS TO WEEKS.

2015: First experience with a warm November. Nov 3 was 74, Nov 4 was 69, Nov 5 was 72 and Nov 6 was 74. Maybe I should keep my AC in until Veterans Day?

2017 (Apr 10/11/16/28/29): Thought it was spring? How about summer instead, with temps dangerously close to 90 on April 11 with a high of 88!

2018: February 21 ended up being a taste of late spring with temps recorded up to 74°F. This was the result of a jet ridge that lifted way up with temps soaring to summer levels. Normally, it doesn't quite make it as far as the Northeast (1K+ miles north of Florida/the South!), but this was one of the rare cases where IT DID make it this far north. We were brushed by it though since we were about as far north as it got. In October, temps made it above 80 as late as October 10th! I went to the Holyoke Mall with my bio-mom to "beat the heat", which is NOT like October to deliver such weather!

2020: January 12 ended up being only the 2nd ever day to record a high of 70°F, and January 11 had also recorded a high of 67°F, so the middle of JANUARY had a weekend with temps of 67 and 70. Basically as unheard of as it gets, nearly +40! On the opposite side of the year, in October, several days were above 70 and even quite close to 80, but it was nothing compared to the period that November 5-11, 2020 was, where temps stayed 70 or above (peak of 77 on 2 days) for A WEEK STRAIGHT. While people were worried about COVID skyrocketing since this was mid-pandemic, it wasn't only the COVID numbers that spiked, but it was the TEMPERATURE numbers that spiked, when an entire week in November decided to behave like the first week of September, absolutely unheard of! And if you thought that that was the last of it, Christmas Day (December 25) ended up being 62 degrees. An absolute nightmare for snow lovers and a 100% GREEN CHRISTMAS that did NOT feel like Christmas, more of a Columbus Day weekend feeling! And with COVID in the air, it was an awfully tough Xmas for many!

2021/2022: Several days in March were 70+ degrees! July 3 (2021) ended up being only 62 degrees (my local TV station, WWLP-22News, ended up airing a "Is it July or December?" segment on the night of 7/3/21 because of this!), my graduation day (June 22, 2022) ended up being only 62 degrees, when it should be like 82 degrees at that time of year!

2023: The entire month of January ended up having highs >32°F. Yes, ALL 31 DAYS OF THE MONTH. The coldest highs recorded were 34°F, and it wouldn't be until the beginning of February that temps would FINALLY hit winter levels with a DEEP FREEZE with temps only in the TEENS during the daytime but with nighttime lows as low as -11°F! (Feb 4, 2023 had a temp of -11°F in the morning that "only" got to +15°F during the day!) April 14 ended up being 92 DEGREES outside but with nearly nonexistent humidity, so it felt like "a spring day in Phoenix (AZ)" in what was supposed to be mid-spring, NOT mid-summer, September 5-7 ended up being the ONLY heat wave of 2023 (for comparison, 2025 delivered FIVE heat waves, which are defined as 3+ consecutive days at 90+°F) after EVERYTHING summer had closed the day before it started since September 4 was Labor Day in 2023, which was absolutely great timing by Mother Nature... (Sarcasm) October 3-5 and October 26-28 were BOTH stretches of weather at or above 80 degrees, and when it was a warm and unheard of 82 degrees on October 28, 2023, only 4 days later, it was snowing on the morning of November 1 and it was PRIME TIME for the beginning of Xmas season, since usually, Halloween is the last holiday before the holidays, and stores treat November 1-December 24 as Xmas season! It was also accumulating on November 1 as well, at least in the morning (it was white on the ground only hours after Halloween!), and it delivered a true beginning to the holiday season that was absolutely perfect timing for retailers, in-person and online! December would deliver somewhat warm weather WAY above average with a high of 60 on Dec 10, 2023 and a high of 66 on Dec 18, 2023. I had come back from a brief trip to the Poconos (Pennsylvania, specifically at the Kalahari water park resort to celebrate my 20th birthday with indoor summer fun in the midst of winter) and instead of it being a SNOWY drive home, it was a WET drive home, also not like December to be like that! That honestly was a blessing considering that we had to drive about 4 hours to get back home which would've been IMPOSSIBLE in snowy weather (and also, I had college FINALS on Dec 18, 2023 so I COULDN'T "stay an extra day"), but it should NOT have been that warm at such a time of year, but at least temps were well above freezing in the 40s both in MA and the Poconos during our travel back on the evening of Dec 17, 2023, which made it easy to come back home!

2024: A summer that would NOT let go, with highs recorded in the 80s in EVERY fall month (September, October AND November!), with 80+ degree days being recorded through NOVEMBER 6, which broke the all-time heat record for November with a recorded high of 83 that day!

2025: April 12 delivered a snowstorm when I was already dressed for warmer weather, and then April 19 delivered said warm weather with a 50-degree temp difference (39°F on 4/12, 89°F on 4/19!) and it even got humid and STORMED at the end of the 19th like it was full-on July! Right after the solstice in late June, temps made it to 100°F for the first time since 2011 (all-time heat record is 102°F for the area for ANY time of year!) and a few days in late June and also July were quite close to 100 besides the day that DID reach 100, which was June 24, 2025.

See what I mean? I wrote so much that I can BARELY describe what I just read, but from the way we're going, it looks like 2025 is also going to be a summer that refuses to let go! If temps are staying in the 70s into October, then who knows if they will reach or exceed levels recorded in 2023/2024 since we don't know that far into the forecast!

TL;DR: Keep your ACs in until the first snow falls. No, I'm SERIOUS. Days warm enough for AC usage have been recorded in my area from March (70s recorded, all-time record 90°F on 3/31/1998) to November! (70s/80s recorded, all-time record 83°F on 11/6/2024!)

Anyways, that was quite a bit to write. See you tomorrow for a more REFRESHING day that fall lovers have been waiting for! Near total sunshine and temps on either side of 70, like they SHOULD be this time of year with the average high being 71 on both September 20 & 21, and then falling to 70 September 22-24 and then the 60s starting September 25!