At the beginning of October, temperatures up to 25°C offer some regions in Europe a last taste of late summer. According to an old popular saying, a warm autumn can foretell a harsh winter. But what do the statistics and meteorologists say?
October started with unusually mild temperatures, reaching up to 25 degrees in some countries. It seems more like a late summer week.
However, according to an old popular saying, precisely this beautiful weather should make us think. "If October is warm and nice, a harsh winter is coming" - says the tradition.
Is a warm October a warning sign?
The old rules of farmers once served as a kind of meteorological calendar. Long before the advent of satellites, weather balloons, and computer models, people observed, over generations, how the seasons unfolded. The accumulated experience gave rise to easily remembered sayings, meant to provide guidance for agriculture and daily life.
However, a correlation that seems plausible over decades does not necessarily constitute a definite link. Regarding the connection between October and the upcoming winter, the past offers a quite spectacular counterexample, notes Euronews.
The old rule is wrong
The autumn of 2006 in Germany, for example, was unusually warm. Anyone relying on the old rule at that time would have prepared for a cold winter.
The reality was quite the opposite: the winter of 2006/2007 became the warmest winter in Germany since the beginning of systematic meteorological records in 1901. The German Meteorological Service (DWD) calculated an average temperature of 4.3 degrees Celsius at that time - 4.1 degrees above the long-term average. There was no prolonged period of frost.
December 2006 was also a month with unusually mild weather, and January set a new temperature record. The old rule, therefore, provided the worst forecast, as noted by the cited source.
Why October doesn't predict what January will be like
According to the German Meteorological Service, the average temperature recorded in Germany in September 2026 was 15.9 degrees Celsius, exceeding the multi-year average by 2.6 degrees. Additionally, the amount of precipitation was significantly below usual levels.
On September 30, temperatures reached 31 degrees in the Upper Rhine area and 29 degrees in the northern part of Baden. On October 1, temperatures reached 25 degrees in Bavaria and Saxony, and between 23 and 25 degrees in Berlin and Brandenburg.
However, this does not mean that the entire month of October will continue in the same way. A change in the weather pattern is anticipated in the coming days, accompanied by a drop in temperatures.
Germany's weather is influenced by large-scale air mass circulation. In winter months, factors such as the distribution of atmospheric pressure over the Atlantic, the phenomenon known as the North Atlantic Oscillation, and changes in the Arctic atmosphere play an important role. Additionally, the polar vortex can influence how cold air masses are distributed.
For this reason, making precise weather forecasts for several months ahead is difficult, even with the help of modern models. The further the forecast horizon, the more the focus shifts from accurately anticipating the weather of a specific day to probabilities and possible developments.
What influence does El Niño have?
The outlook for the winter of 2026/2027 is complicated by El Niño.
The climatic phenomenon in the tropical zone of the Pacific Ocean is currently developing with unusual intensity. According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there is a probability of over 90% that a very strong El Niño event will occur in the fall and winter of 2026/2027.
For the period October-December, NOAA estimates a 75% probability that the intensity of the phenomenon will exceed that of all El Niño events recorded from 1950 to the present.
El Niño influences the global climate system, but its effects vary considerably from one region to another and depend on other atmospheric conditions. Even NOAA emphasizes that the occurrence of such effects is not guaranteed.
Will we have a harsh winter?
Of course, a cold winter is not excluded. Even after a very mild autumn, the specific conditions of winter can set in during the months of January or February.
However, as it is a popular belief from the times before satellites, the old farmers' rule does not provide a reliable forecast. Therefore, anyone anticipating an extremely cold winter just because temperatures reach 20 or 25 degrees at the beginning of October can rest assured. A warm October does not represent a meteorological countdown to the onset of frost.
T.D.