Well, it finally rained: a whole month’s worth in two days! That deluge brought the month’s total to 138 millimetres, rapidly transforming October from a 25 per cent deficit to a 66 per cent surplus. The additional precipitation was much needed after a relatively dry summer but will now make the remaining corn harvest a mucky business. Definitely a trick rather than a treat!
The warm October weather came to an end during the last week as the tail end of hurricane Melissa swept through. The average temperature dropped considerably, from 12.0 degrees Celsius down to 10.7. This is still above the normal for the whole month of 9.4 C, making October 2025 the eleventh-warmest since records started to be kept on the farm in Ormstown in 1966.
The corn heat unit (CHU) count ended with 114 CHU in October, which is about normal. This brought the 2025 total to 3163 CHU starting on May 15, and for those who were able to plant in early May, another 173 CHU can be added. The totals represent a slightly below-average season.
So far in 2025, the average temperature is 0.6 C above normal, and precipitation is, despite the heavy rains in the last week of October, still 11 per cent below normal.