Record Lows and Record Highs: October Split the Plains Temperature Ledger

San Antonio, Texas, fell to 44 degrees Fahrenheit on Oct. 18, a new record low for that date, while Imperial, Nebraska, hit 88 degrees on both Oct. 22 and 23 — record highs two days running. Those four readings frame the month Plains growers just closed out: a transition month that behaved mostly as expected, punctuated by temperature extremes that did not.

Meteorologist Regina Bird, who spent nine years forecasting on Nebraska television after earning a meteorology degree from the University of Kansas and growing up on a farm near Belleville, Kansas, reported the mixed pattern in the High Plains Journal. October delivered the customary alternation of warmer and cooler days. What set it apart was the size of the swings, especially on the warm side.

What did the month look like in the field?

Harvest and fieldwork ran at an uneven pace. Rainy stretches slowed combines and fall tillage at times, Bird reported. Long stretches of dry weather balanced out those interruptions, keeping the month's overall progress close to a normal October cadence.

The record events bookended the region. The Oct. 18 low in San Antonio, at 44 degrees, rewrote that calendar day's record. Days later and several hundred miles northwest, Imperial logged back-to-back record highs of 88 degrees on Oct. 22 and 23. One month produced both ends of the record book across the Plains footprint.

What does November hold?

The forecast tilts warm and wet. Above-normal temperatures are expected across Nebraska and into northern Kansas through November. Precipitation should total above normal across the Southern Plains, much of Kansas, and southwest Nebraska.

For readers weighing drying costs against soil-moisture recharge, the practical question is what this changes for late fall fieldwork. The answer: a wetter Southern Plains pattern may slow final harvest passes and fertilizer applications there, while warmer northern temperatures should keep field-access windows open longer than usual.

The signal does not end with the month. The wetter trend is forecast to continue into the New Year for the Southern Plains, Kansas, and much of Nebraska. Through January, temperatures should average above seasonal norms for much of Nebraska into eastern Kansas.

Drought relief and the El Niño driver

The seasonal outlook carries the most consequential line for crop budgets: drought improvement is expected over the next few months for most of the Southern to Central Plains. For operations still carrying dry subsoil into the 2026 season, that forecast offers the first credible path to moisture recovery in months.

The driver behind the pattern is global. Current conditions show an ongoing and strengthening El Niño, and the forecast continues to point toward El Niño strengthening to what Bird described as possible historic levels, with the pattern expected to persist through the winter months.

The climatological logic is straightforward. El Niño conditions usually produce warmer temperatures from the northern to Central Plains and a wetter pattern across the Southern Plains — which is precisely the split the November-through-January outlook already reflects. The forecast and the teleconnection agree, which raises confidence in both.

Bird, whose weather interest began with views from her family's Kansas farm, posts ongoing updates on X under @ReginaBirdWX and will report next month's pattern shift. Growers from Texas to Nebraska will be watching whether November's promised precipitation arrives in time to build soil moisture ahead of freeze-up.