Halloween Highs: Fluke or Fact? Students Worried What This Could Mean for the Climate

Students of St. Lawrence University emerged from their dorms to an unprecedently warm Halloween evening last Thursday. Although the weather boaded convenient for those dressed in less insulated costumes, it is plausible that these temperatures could be indicative of a far less convenient climate pattern.  

St. Lawrence professor Lori Clarke applied her environmental studies and public health knowledge to her interpretation of the significance of this past weekend’s weather. “We get these climate cycles that occur on three to seven year cycles, and we go between El Niño and La Niña, and we have normal years in between,” Clarke prefaced. “We have a kind of weak La Niña effect right now, which is creating a little bit of warmer winter conditions up here, but on top of that, we have this average change in temperature that’s occurring,” she said. These climate patterns provide some scientific explanation as to why Thursday evening was so warm, but they do not definitively answer whether this year’s hot Halloween is a reason for concern.  

Michael Iversen, the director of sustainability and energy management at SLU, heeded that the significance of this past weekend’s temperatures should be examined logically. “You would need the benefit of the data, the historic data, before anyone assigns any significance to what the weather was today. Now, unfortunately, I cannot find the weather records that, you know, were generated from that weather station on campus,” Iversen explained. He warned that because the impacts on the North Country are fully not known, it can be dangerous to draw positive or negative conclusions.  

Syracuse native Beth Polcaro ’27 said that the temperatures this past weekend made for a pleasant but unusual going-out experience. “It definitely was a perk because you could wear basically whatever and not be worrying about being cold. As a kid, you’re always shivering, freezing, running from house-to-house, trying to do everything as quickly as possible,” she elaborated. However, she recognized the high-70 degree weather could still be interpreted as a cause for concern.  

Clara Leak ’27 held a similar perspective to Polcaro on this past weekend’s temperature surge. “It was kind of upsetting, but also, it was nice. So, I guess there’s a duality there,” Leak acknowledged. Leak’s hesitancy to identify the weather on Thursday evening as definitively positive or negative results from her climate awareness.  

When asked whether or not she believed the warm conditions were a fluke or part of a greater climate crisis, Clara Leak spoke of her apprehensions. “I mean, so close to November, being in the 70s, like that’s definitely a cause for concern for me. I don’t think it was a fluke,” she said. Thus, despite Thursday’s warmth being enjoyable in the moment, the heat of the night was not so positive in retrospect.