John Wheeler: Fall weather goes up and down but always trends colder

FARGO — On any given day in September, our weather can vary from fairly hot to quite cold. September extremes in the past here in Fargo have an 85-degree range from 102 degrees to 17. October extremes are even wilder, varying 101 degrees, from 97 to 4 below. Even mundane autumn weather patterns in our region will often produce relatively wild temperature swings.

However, one thing is as steady as it is inevitable. The nights grow longer while the days are cut shorter. The amount of daylight decreases by more than three minutes per day this time of year. On Halloween, there is an hour and 45 minutes less daylight than today. The shorter days mean considerably less solar energy is received at the earth’s surface, which leads to colder weather and, eventually, winter. As weather systems blow this way and that, the weather may turn warmer or colder day by day, but the overall trend this time of year will always be toward colder temperatures.

John Wheeler is Chief Meteorologist for WDAY, a position he has had since May of 1985. Wheeler grew up in the South, in Louisiana and Alabama, and cites his family’s move to the Midwest as important to developing his fascination with weather and climate. Wheeler lived in Wisconsin and Iowa as a teenager. He attended Iowa State University and achieved a B.S. degree in Meteorology in 1984. Wheeler worked about a year at WOI-TV in central Iowa before moving to Fargo and WDAY..