I canceled every flight last week except for Friday and Saturday. A low moved across Kansas, entered Missouri and parked itself over Hannibal.  And there it sat.

The front was well to the East of us, but the counter-clockwise rotation around the low kept bringing the rain and clouds back over us. The 2-plus inches of rain put a stop to the harvest.  It will be some time before the fields dry enough to get back on them. 

It has been a strange weather year. Last month was the third-coolest October in the U.S. in a more than 110-year period, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The average temperature in Missouri for October was 50.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

According to NOAA, that is four degrees cooler than normal October temperatures. Much of the Midwest was cooler than normal all summer. Places such as Wisconsin set record lows in July and August. But Texas, the Southwest, California and the Pacific Northwest were warmer than normal. As of this writing, 2009 had been the 43rd warmest year since record-keeping began in 1895.