The other night, realizing with a jolt that we were already entering October, I went into the basement and pulled out the Halloween decorations, including an old-school “blow mold” ghost to stick up on the roof — all signals that we’re stepping into one of the most evocative changing-leaves-and-cold-cider times of the year in Upstate New York.
Still, I’d ask you to join me in a moment of quick appreciation for the celestial quality of the month just gone by, as illustrated so magnificently by the Mike Greenlar photos that accompany this piece.
I mean, start-to-end: What a September.
Meteorologists, by the nature of jobs that involve seeing every imaginable up or down with the weather, aren’t given to casual superlatives. Yet over the last few days I’ve spoken with Steve McLaughlin, a retired National Weather Service meteorologist in Erie County who writes a wonderfully reflective “monthly summary” of the weather on Facebook, and Brian Tentinger, a meteorologist at the weather service station in Binghamton, and Dave Sage, an old friend who retired after many years as lead forecaster in Buffalo.
They all expressed similar thoughts about the memorable nature of what we just witnessed, a month in which Tentinger said the average daily high in Syracuse was 76, and the average daily low was 52.
“Yes, it was just about the most perfect month possible, here or anywhere in the world,” wrote McLaughlin in his summary. He’s a guy who loves to ride his bike, meaning he fully appreciated what September brought to us, and he emphasized that point when we spoke over the phone:
“It was one of the nicest months I’ve ever seen,” he said.
In other words: The month we just experienced was a masterwork of beauty — at least if you measure it by warm days and blue skies. For my part, there’s no better place for savoring the majesty of an Upstate September than at the apple farms along Route 20 in southern Onondaga County.
I was up there not long ago with one of my kids on a Sunday afternoon, a warm day with no need for a jacket, sun casting golden light and the occasional shadow of a cloud on the big view of the hills running back toward the Onondaga Valley…
And that night, once we went home, it was cool enough to use warm blankets as we slept.
There it is. As good as it gets.
In the words of Sage, who worked for decades with the weather service in Buffalo, this is one way of defining our September:
“Anybody that planned anything had great weather for everything.”
He mentioned how much he’s enjoyed watching a fine and exciting Buffalo Bills team play recently and repeatedly in high-profile home game television slots. Sage knows millions of viewers around the nation have come to vaguely believe — through annual coverage of fierce and epic Western New York snowstorms, sometimes accompanied by images of volunteers shoveling out Highmark Stadium — that all Upstate weather is a grim slog that leads into those snowy Decembers and Januarys, by Lake Erie.
They’re getting a lesson in the truth: As McLaughlin wrote, the quality in this region of our Septembers and Octobers can often be as good as it gets, anywhere — as well as a season that’s one of the things missed the most by many who move away. In greater Buffalo, McLaughlin said, the 30-year average that’s used to study weather trends shows a pattern of consistent warming — and September is the month that’s gotten warmer, most of all.
“My time of year,” said Sage, an avid golfer and a Godfather of the legendary “Golden Snowball.” I wanted his voice in this piece for a big reason: Almost 20 years ago, I spoke to Sage when I wrote a wistful column for The Post-Standard | Syracuse.com in which I noted just how much I love September and everything it brings, and how we ought to see it as a capstone of Central New York seasonal soul, but how I almost never stop to really appreciate it…
Because the world, in September, grinds back to work. Teachers and students return to school and vacations end for many families, meaning the month comes with a great sigh about again confronting the work-a-day realities of life, all of it a distraction from what’s happening outside our windows:
Beyond the classroom or the office — even as we wearily look down at our keyboards — the weather is often in full and aching as-good-as-it-gets-all-year glory.
Sage not only agreed with the conclusion, but provided the statistics to back up the idea that September is both a jewel and a vastly underrated month.
This is God’s honest truth: So many readers agreed with that assessment in that column, long ago — and shared the same wistful dream of someday fully savoring that bite-of-a-fresh-apple wonder of September, in some distant retirement — that people still mention that piece to me now, out of the blue.
Regarding this September we just saw: Man, it proves the point.
Tentinger said there were 25 Syracuse days in September with at least partial sunshine — a statistic of particular pop in a community that routinely ranks in the nation’s 10 cloudiest cities — though Tentinger and McLaughlin both offered a proviso.
While Tentinger said that weather is “perfect” for many, he wisely added: “People’s ‘nice’ is different.” What he means is that our relentlessly sunny, warm and dry weather is also bordering in Central New York on drought conditions, a status the Rochester area has actually reached — leaving many Upstate farmers worried about the status of their harvest on these blue sky days.
Janet Oppedisano, agriculture team leader for the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Onondaga County — which she notes ranks ninth in New York state for total value of agricultural products — said such local crops as broccoli, squash, tomatoes and strawberries were “all hit pretty heavily” by a strange ongoing sequence of extremes in the weather.
May, she said, was unusually wet, grim and cold. By the end of June, conditions had turned to hot and extraordinarily dry, which “really hurt for people whose crops came in earlier,” she said.
And Don Leopold, a distinguished teaching professor and tree expert from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, said that same combination might detract from peak colors as the leaves — especially on the maples — go through with their big change this month.
McLaughlin said he’s confident, within a month or two, we’ll be getting the kind of rain and snow we typically see once we roll into late autumn. Still, Oppedisano makes a strong point: A warm and dry September, especially after our dark and wet May, is not ideal for everyone.
On the other hand…
If you are a runner or a golfer or a hiker or an outdoor pickleball player… or if you planned an outdoor wedding or a big back yard party in September… or if, like me, you dry your clothes outside on the line so your sheets smell like wind and sun when you fall asleep… or if you love shooting baskets in your driveway… or if you like to wear shorts and sandals far beyond the usual expiration date… or for whatever reason, if you simply love to be outside:
The truth is, we collectively just hit a kind of September jackpot.
As McLaughlin said: “It had to be about the most perfect month you could ever see.”
Better yet — as he contemplated how Sunday night should provide a perfect setting as the New England Patriots visit Buffalo to play the Bills — he said that fine September also promises an encore.
As we’re seeing right now: The first two weeks of October, McLaughlin said, should be more of the same thing.
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