Sep. 2015: A Top 5-7 Warmest on Record at Grand Island, Hastings

Thanks to the month as a whole being dominated by ridge of high pressure aloft, Sep. 2015 finished solidly within the Top 5-10 warmest on record across much of the NWS Hastings coverage area of South Central Nebraska/North Central Kansas (see depature-from-normal image below). Although NWS Hastings collects climate data for dozens of locations across the area, our two "primary" sites for which we issue climate records/statistics for are Grand Island and Hastings airports, for which details follow:

Grand Island, Central Nebraska Regional Airport: (temperature records date back 120 years to 1896):

- Based on the average daily temperature of 70.7° (meaning an average of the daily highs/lows)...Sep. 2015 was the 7th-warmest September on record out of 120 years dating to 1896. Following are the Top-7 warmest months of September on record:

1) 75.4°...1931
2) 74.0°... 1933
3) 72.8°... 1897
4) 71.6°... 1998

5) 71.4°... 1925

6) 71.2°... 1921

7) 70.7°... 2015

- Although by far the hottest stretch of the month was right off the bat (each of the first six days featured highs ranging from 92-96°), there were several additional notably warm days throughout the remainder of the month as well. In fact, 25 of the 30 days featured an above normal daily average temperature.

- The majority of weight toward the warmer-than-normal month was attributed to low temperatures, which averaged a notable 6.8° above normal. In fact, lows never dropped below 47° during the month...this had only happened one prior time, 17 years ago in 1998.

- Despite September averaging so warm, somewhat oddly, Grand Island did not set any DAILY temperature records along the way.

Hastings Municipal Airport: (temperature records date back 108 years to 1907)

- Based on the average daily temperature of 71.8° (meaning an average of the daily highs/lows)...Sep. 2015 was the 5th-warmest September on record out of 108 years dating to 1907. It was also the warmest in 75 YEARS, since 1940! Following are the Top-5 warmest months of September on record:

1) 74.3°...1931
2) 72.8°... 1933
3) 72.7°... 1939
4) 72.0°... 1940
5) 71.8°... 2015

- Although by far the hottest stretch of the month was right off the bat (each of the first six days featured highs ranging from 91-97°), there were several additional notably warm days throughout the remainder of the month as well. In fact, 26 of the 30 days featured an above normal daily average temperature.

- The majority of weight toward the warmer-than-normal month was attributed to low temperatures, which averaged a notable 6.4° above normal. In fact, lows never dropped below 47° during the month...this had only happened four prior times: 1998, 2004, 1963, 1923.

- Despite September averaging so warm, Hastings only featured one DAILY temperature record along the way: Tied the warmest low temperature on record for Sep. 4th (72°).

Sep. 2015: Regional Temperature Depature-From-Normal (from HPRCC)

This page was composed by the staff at the National Weather Service in Hastings, Nebraska.