Philly’s gray reign of gloom persists as one of the driest Septembers on record yields to October

Despite 10 consecutive dispiritingly gloomy days in which the sun over Philly has been barely a rumor, last month finished as one of the driest Septembers in 153 years of official record-keeping, according to the National Weather Service.

And chances are that with the dawn of October, you won’t be needing much in the way of sunscreen until perhaps Thursday, forecasters say.

Officially, only 0.77 inches of rain were measured at Philadelphia International Airport — the eighth-driest September on record — as the entire region now is classified as being either “abnormally dry” or in “moderate drought” by the inter-agency U.S. Drought Monitor.

Last month didn’t challenge the non-raining September champ — 1884, which weighed in with a mere 0.2 inches — but the 2024 figure was only 18% of normal.

Given the catastrophic winds and flooding rains from Helene in the South, the complaints may seem comparatively trivial, but, yes, it would be perfectly normal to come down with a nasty case of seasonal blues, said Norman Rosenthal, the psychiatrist crediting with min

ting the term “seasonal affective disorder.”

The timing of the cloud-fest happens to coincide with the ever-earlier sunsets and later sunrises. “With each passing day, we’re rapidly losing daylight,” said Ray Martin, a lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly. Philly loses more than two hours of daylight between Sept. 1 and Oct. 31.

In tandem with the clouds, that constitutes a “double whammy,” said Rosenthal.

» READ MORE: Will the dryness speed up the foliage season?

The sun made cameos over parts of the region Monday, but skies over Philly have been officially cloudy on nine of the last 10 days, the only bright spot being Sept. 22, when they were a mere 70% cloud-covered.

For all that gray, “We’ve just had these little spitty rains,” said Martin, “a lot of clouds and not a whole lot to show for it.”

Helene’s rains stay well to the south, and rather than storms around here, the clouds have been manufactured predominately by east and northeast wind ferrying moisture from the Atlantic, said Martin’s colleague Lee Robertston.

Dave Dombek, senior meterologist with AccuWeather Inc. likened the weather to that experienced in the Pacific Northwest, where “It’ll be cloudy and damp. It looks like it’s going to rain at anytime.” It does rain, “but you tally it all up, and it doesn’t amount to a lot.”

The clouds aren’t doing much for rain deficits in Philly and other parts of the Mid-Atlantic region, but they are dampening moods, said Rosenthal, including his own.

“It’s not just the length of the day, it’s the quality of light,” said Rosenthal, now a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Georgetown University Medical Center who maintains a private practice in Maryland, which has shared Philadelphia’s gloom.

“This time it hit me like I don’t think it’s never hit me before,” he said. Rosenthal, formerly with the National Institutes of Health, identified seasonal affective disorder and its more-common variant, “winter blues,” after he experienced his first autumn in New York following a move from his native Johannesburg.

Last week, he said he decided to take a dose of his own medicine and spent the first hour of a morning in front of his light therapy lamps.

“I felt my spirits were lifting,” he said.

The region should be getting some natural light therapy later this week, with at least some peeks of sun the next few days and a more generous doses on Thursday.

And the timing of the dry spell isn’t all bad, said Dombek. With the sun’s power waning, moisture isn’t evaporating as quickly, plus the foliage has benefitted from decent harvests of overnight dew.

While no significant rains are in the forecast, right now it appears that the weather should be splendid for the opening of the postseason this weekend at Citizens Bank Park.