From 95 degrees and feeling like you’re walking on the sun to being drenched by a rainstorm to regretting your choice of a t-shirt and shorts as a strong, cold wind hits you mid-stride. In short, despite it not having officially started until last Saturday, welcome to fall weather, Villanova. 

Ever since students returned to campus just about a month ago, the weather has been erratic and unpredictable as seemingly each week, each day even, a far different temperature comes to pass –  something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Villanova students.

“I feel like it has been crazy and not unlike any schoolwork and stress as it relates to being new students,” freshman Connor Reilly said. “[It’s] also been a tough transition trying to navigate campus in between the heat and the rain.”

The first Friday of September had a rather low temperature, just hitting a high of 79 degrees. The week after, a huge spike in temperature to a high of 93 degrees. And yet, despite that heat wave, just a week following it, the temperature fell to 76 degrees.

And as we’ve all experienced these past two weekends, it’s been a combination of colder weather, wind and especially for this Family Weekend, non-stop rain. For some students from the area like freshman Katie Hawthorne, this kind of weather and the effects are no surprise.

“Well, I’m from Philly, so I’m used to the craziness we’ve been having recently,” Hawthorne said. “But it really sucks trying to coordinate my plans and outfits without consistent weather [and I] just want it to be regular fall weather at this point.”

For those expecting some normality to come as we shift from September to October, hopes may already be dashed. 

In a recent article published by Chris Dolce, a meteorologist for the Weather Channel since 2002, he predicts that the Northeast may be seeing its first snow as early as next month, with temperatures expected to plummet around mid to late October. There also, according to Dolce, may be an increase in extreme weather events, as in the past seven years, the Atlantic has seen more hurricanes post-Fall equinox than it had in the past 30 years. 

And the change to fall may not only be different weather-wise, the color changing of the leaves may also be a bit different than one has seen before. According to a Columbia Climate school article, a study done shows that in the past few years, leaves have been changing colors “a few days later” than they have in previous years. 

It all goes back to the idea of climate change not just affecting the weather, as Dolce alluded to with his fall weather predictions, but the foliage around us as the warmer the planet gets, the shorter the foliage season is. 

This weather is far from exclusive to the campus of Villanova as from coast to coast, the weather’s been incredibly erratic, with extreme weather phenomena occurring at times no one would ordinarily expect and higher temperatures across the board. 

It also concurs with last year’s prediction from the National Center for Environmental Information which stated that the upcoming year, this year, would be one of the warmest years in the history of the world and a year where discernible weather patterns continue to disappear. This is a statement that of a year nearly 75% completed has been shown to be true thus far.

So the modus operandi going forward, it would seem, is to expect the unexpected and be ready for anything as just six weeks into the new academic year, Villanovans have already seen just how unpredictable the weather can be.