The average temperature at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport was 51.2 degrees, a substantial 7.4 degrees below normal. Only 1925, which had an average temperature of 49.0 degrees, was colder.

But 2009 still put up some remarkable statistics: 25 of 31 days recorded below normal readings, with 13 of those days at least 10 degrees below normal.

Record low temperatures were set on Oct. 3 (37 degrees) and Oct. 11 (34). Record cool high temperatures were set on Oct. 10 (42) and Oct. 11 (45).

This October was on pace to be the coldest on record until a warm-up late in the month boosted the average temperature. That warm-up looks to continue for several more days.

But even if it snowed this week in Wichita, that wouldn’t come near the record for earliest measurable snowfall in the city. That distinction goes to Sept. 26, 1942, when a trace fell.

Leave it to Wichita to laugh at the concept of “average.” Two years after setting a record for earliest snowfall, the city set a new record for latest freeze: late November.

Records show the average first freeze date in Wichita is Oct. 28. This being Kansas, however, there’s a significant swing in freeze dates on the calendar. The earliest recorded freeze in Wichita was Sept. 22, 1995.

The latest recorded freeze was Nov. 21, 1944 – just a few days before Thanksgiving, as a matter of fact.

But forecasters tell me fall-like temperatures had arrived in Wichita by late August, a few weeks ahead of schedule…so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Jack Frost would arrive early this year as well.

The answer is “no.”

In fact, AccuWeather predicts that the Eastern Seaboard will be hit particularly hard this winter – a distinct contrast from the Farmers Almanac’s projection that a “cold sandwich” will dominate the season, with the coasts being spared the harsher conditions between the Rockies and the Appalachians.

Interesting. We’ll find out who’s right soon enough….

The venerable publication’s 2010 edition, which went on sale Tuesday, predicts numbing cold for the country’s midsection, from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians. Here’s a map of the winter forecast, which I pulled from the Farmer’s Almanac Web site.

“We feel the middle part of the country’s really going to be cold — very, very cold, very, very frigid, with a lot of snow,” Managing Editor Sandi Duncan told the Associated Press. “On the East and West coasts, it’s going to be a little milder. Not to say it’s going to be a mild short winter, but it’ll be milder compared to the middle of the country.”

The almanac, which has been published since 1818, issues annual forecasts using a formula based on sunspots, planetary positions and the effects of the moon.

This winter will be cool and snowy in the Northeast, bitterly cold and dry in the Great Lakes states, and cold and snowy across the North Central states. The almanac predicts the Northwest will be cool with average precipitation, the Southwest will be mild and dry, the South Central states will be cold and wet, and the Southeast will be mild and dry.

How have past predictions by the almanac borne out? Judge for yourself.

Russell recorded an overnight low of 11, shattering the previous record by 6 degrees. Salina, meanwhile, recorded a low of 17. That topped the previous record by 2 degrees. Wichita dropped to 21, bettering the old record by 2 degrees as well.

All three previous records were set in 2007.

Dodge City reported 19 degrees, erasing the old record of 21 set in 1938 and matched in 2007. Garden City fell to 18, bettering the record of 21 from 2007. Medicine Lodge reported 19, several degrees below the old record of 24 from 1996.

Much colder temperatures are arriving in the metropolitan area today, and will linger through the rest of the week. Highs will peak in the upper 40s today as a cold front slides through the Great Plains. North winds will be steady in the teens and gust to nearly 30 miles an hour, forecasters said.

Cloudy skies will gradually clear as the day unfolds, and then sunshine will predominate the rest of the week. Highs will be in the upper 30s on Wednesday and the low 40s on Thursday, forecasters say.

The presentation, which will be at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Century II, tells the story of how more than 200 lives were saved during the most
intense tornado ever observed on radar.

On Feb. 13, 1905, the temperature dove to -40 in Lebanon, which is located in Smith County.

Lebanon is better known as being virtually the geographic center of the nation, but it has a spot in state record book as well.