SIKESTON — Local trick-or-treaters will have to brave the cold if they want to get some candy this Halloween.
Thursday — which is the actual holiday — in Sikeston is forecast to be mostly cloudy with a high near 46 degrees and a low around 28, according to the National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky. There is a 30 percent chance of rain mainly before 1 p.m. on Thursday, and the evening is forecast to be cloudy. However, wind gusts could be as high as 21-28 miles per hour the Weather Service said.
Temperatures are well below the average highs and lows for Halloween in the area, according to the Weather service.
High temperatures on Halloween in Cape Girardeau, which is the closest climate data available for the Sikeston area, are predominately in the 60s or 70s, encompassing 81% of all years on record, the Weather Service said. Climate has been recorded at Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, located 5 miles southwest of Cape Girardeau, since June 1960.
Cape Girardeau has only seen one Halloween with a temperature above 80 and this happened back in 1968 when the high was 82. There have been three years where the high temperature failed to reach 50 — in 2017, 2002 and 1993.
Low temperatures typically fall in the 30s, 40s or 50s on Halloween with a nearly equal frequency of each. There have been five years where the low dipped below the freezing mark, most recently in 2017 when the temperature was 28 degrees. The coldest recorded low was 26 in 1993.
On the warm side of the spectrum, there have been five years with lows in the 60s, which last occurred in 2003 when the low was 60 degrees.
Measurable precipitation has fallen 38% of the time, with an inch or more of precipitation occurring three times: in 2018, 2013 and 1972.