The 10 Coldest Fall Seasons on Record in America
So far, January through September 2026 is the warmest such stretch on record for the contiguous US, at 59.25°F. That is 4.18°F above the 20th-century average and 0.42°F ahead of the previous record, set in 2012, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Against that backdrop, cold autumns look increasingly like a thing of the past.
The National Weather Service defines fall as September 1 to November 30. We calculated the average temperature for those dates in every year from 1895 to 2025 and compared each with the 1901-2000 average of 53.54°F to identify the coldest falls on record. The analysis covers only the 48 contiguous states.
The coldest falls are almost all in the past. Only one of the 10 coldest, 1993, came after 1976, and none came after that. Three occurred in the 1890s, the first years of the federal record. The contiguous US has not had a below-average fall since 2006. The coldest fall since 2000 was 2000 itself, at 52.88°F, which doesn’t even rank in the top 25.
| Rank | Year | Avg temp | Departure |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1976 | 50.88°F | −2.66°F |
| 2 | 1896 | 51.04°F | −2.50°F |
| 3 | 1898 | 51.76°F | −1.78°F |
| 4 | 1993 | 51.81°F | −1.73°F |
| 5 | 1895 | 51.85°F | −1.69°F |
| 6 | 1972 | 51.87°F | −1.67°F |
| 7 | 1929 | 51.90°F | −1.64°F |
| 8 | 1916 | 51.94°F | −1.60°F |
| 9 | 1925 | 51.99°F | −1.55°F |
| 10 | 1911 | 52.00°F | −1.54°F |
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