October's Wicked Warm Weather, Record Breaking

By Karyn Chenoweth Oct 9, 2007, 13:25 GMT

Officials of the Chicago Marathon look down at the fallen Robert K. Cherulyot of Kenya who won with a time of 2:07:35 Sunday October 22, 2006 in Chicago, Illinois. Cherulyot slipped as he crossed the finish line and was taken away in a wheelchair by medical personnel. EPA/Stephen J. Carrera

October is not normally a hot and humid month for the mid-west.  The weird fall weather continued across the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, where temperatures topped out in the upper 80s and low 90s.

In Ohio, Sunday's high of 91 in Columbus tied the city's all-time high temperature for October.

Central Ohio farms said it's been too hot for many customers to go out into the pumpkin patches where they can pick their own.

However, forecasters said the state may finally see a break tomorrow.

The Chicago marathon on Sunday had dozens of runners hospitalized due to hot, muggy conditions.

With a record 88 degrees at its hottest, one runner after another swooned from the heat, the humidity and what many said was a shortage of water.

One marathon runner died; however, an autopsy later showed a heart condition most likely aggravated by the stress of running in the record-setting heat.

CBS News reports that this past summer will be remembered for another heat wave with huge potential consequences - in the Arctic.

Satellite images, which normally show a summer melt-back of sea ice, this year recorded a sudden, unexpected and unprecedented melt-off that left open water across the top of Canada and Alaska and shocked scientists.

"We're seeing unprecedented change," said Walt Meier of the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center. "It's something that we probably haven't seen, you know, not just in the last hundred years but probably in several hundred and maybe even thousands of years."

Hot temperatures were expected to continue Monday in parts of the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast and Florida.

New York is feeling the heat too. In midtown Manhattan, the temperature topped the 80-degree mark, but the ice rink at New York's Rockefeller Center opened Monday for the season.

Some of the skaters donned T-shirts and shorts to go with their blades, took to the ice, which had a few puddles of water.