Is It Fall Yet?

2 minute read

Autumn may officially begin on September 22 or 23 each year, but it often feels like the weather takes a few weeks to get the memo.

Here at TIME Labs, we were curious when it begins to actually feel like fall around the country. To do so, we looked at 21 years of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, defining autumn as the first five consecutive days in which the high was lower than 70 percent of a region’s yearly range in temperatures. (For example, a place with yearly lows of 10 and yearly highs of 90 would have a “fall line” of 66 degrees, which is 70 percent of the distance between those extremes.) Enter your city or county below to see when you can expect cooler weather in your neighborhood.

Find more interactives at TIME Labs.

This sort of analysis is more Farmer’s Almanac than fine meteorology, but in most cases summer does overstay its welcome for at least a few days. In playing around with our own interactive, we found many instances of fake outs in which there would be a few fall-like days in August or early September followed by a resurgence of sweltering weather.

Methodology

Weather data can be as finicky as the weather itself as measuring stations go on and offline. For this interactive, we looked at the five closest weather stations to the center of a city or county, limiting the search to stations that have been active since 1995. We then averaged the high temperature for each of those stations for each day from Jan. 1, 1995 to the present. In limited cases in rural areas, there were not five stations within a 50-miles radius.

PHOTOS: Breathtaking Aerial Views of Fall Foliage in Poland

Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest near Gdynia.
A clearing in a forest near Gdynia with trees changing colour in autumn.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest located in Region of Kashubia.
A patch of forest in the region of Kashubia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest located in Region of Kashubia.
A view over a lake in a forest with trees changing colour in autumn in Kashubia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest located in Region of Kashubia.
An aerial view of a forest with the trees changing colour in autumn in Kashubia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest located in Region of Kashubia.
A view of a house in a forest with trees changing colour in autumn in Kashubia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest located in Region of Kashubia.
A clearing surrounded by trees changing colour in autumn in a forest in Kashubia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest located in Region of Kashubia.
A view of a clearing amongst trees changing colour in autumn in a forest in Kashubia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland.
A view over a forest with trees changing colour in autumn.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland.
A view over a forest with trees changing colour in autumn.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest located in Region of Kashubia.
A view over a forest with trees changing colour in autumn in Kashubia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest near Gdynia.
A view over a forest with trees changing colour in autumn near Gdynia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest located in Region of Kashubia.
A view of a forest in the edge of a lake with the trees changing colour in autumn in Kashubia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Brda river valley near Tuchola.
The Brda River runs through a valley near Tuchola.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland. Forest located in Region of Kashubia.
A river runs through farmland in Kashubia.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS
Autumn in Pomerania, north side of Poland.
A view over a forest with trees changing colour in autumn.Kacper Kowalski—PANOS

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Write to Chris Wilson at chris.wilson@time.com