Hey Folks,

No matter where I go these days... people always seem to say the same thing... WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET SOME SUNSHINE??? or THIS HAS TO BE THE WORST OCTOBER I CAN EVER REMEMBER!!!

So that got me to thinking... has this been the worst October ever for the Northeast Coast of Newfoundland???

Well, there's no doubt, the common weather pattern has been very unfavorable for most of the Province, with lots of Low's tracking through. Overall it's been a very unsettled pattern for Eastern Canada. However for folks living along the Northeast Coast of Newfoundland from the Bay of Exploits, down through Gander, Bonavista and the Avalon there has been no relief at all. It seems every time an area of High pressure has settled in and cleared things out... it was anchored to the West or Northwest over Labrador. What does that mean?

Well with High pressure to the Northwest and that clockwise flow... even good days for folks in Eastern Labrador and Western, Central and Southern Newfoundland... turned out to be cloudy, unsettled, cool and windy for folks along Northeast Coast. As a result it's been a rotten month.

I've been looking over the St. John's and Gander weather stations stats and the Numbers say it all really... here are a few things that stuck out.

THE NUMBERS
-The biggest number... is the 268 mm of precipitation in St. John's. The average in October is only 162 mm!
-Gander has seen 193 mm, your normal October precip is 112 mm.
-The other big stat for Gander is of course Snowfall. Around 35 cm of Snow has fallen in October... that well above the average of just 13 cm!!!
-Precip free days... there haven't been too many this month along the Northeast Coast. In St. John's there has only been 3 days with in precip at all. In Gander you've only had 1!!!!
-It's hard to remember, but for the first week of October temperatures were at or even above seasonal. But from October 8th on... GANDER HASN'T HIT DOUBLE DIGITS ONCE!!! St. John's has been almost as cool... with just 3 days barely hitting 10 degrees in the past 3 weeks.
-I don't have any actually hourly amounts for Sunshine hours... but I went over the last 29 days in both St. John's and Gander and couldn't find too much sunshine at all.
St. John's- I found just 4 Sunny days this month. Oct 7th, 13th, 15th and 26th. 2 days that were Sunny days for half the day, so you could maybe say 5 days total out of the past 29!!! Yikes.
Gander- Was even worse. October 15th was the only real "Sunny" day. Lots of Mostly Cloudy days, about 4 more days with about half Sunny days, been it's been gloomy there as well.

WORST EVER? NOT QUITE
So as I said, the numbers speak for themselves... it's been gloomy, wet, windy and cool. But has this really been the worst October ever??? I don't think so. As Environment Canada's Senior Climatologist David Phillips pointed out on The Radio Noon Crosstalk show today, that honour should go to October of 1981. That year St. John's had 322 mm of precip!!! Gander had 209 mm!!! So I think 1981 takes the cake.

If you'd like to hear today's Radio Noon Crosstalk with guest David Phillips... the podcast should be up later this afternoon. Click here.

PROVINCE OCTOBER NUMBERS
Now as for the rest of the Province... and I know it's been a cloudy October in Lab West as well (just 4 Sunny days)... I'll break down the stats for everyone in my 'October by the Numbers Blog', early next week. So check back for that.

Tomorrow here on the blog, I'll focus on Halloween and the weekend ahead.

Ryan