For pleasant weather, you can’t beat CLE in September: Here’s how readers like to spend a perfect weekend

CLEVELAND, Ohio – If you consider the 70s to be the perfect temperature, no month beats September year after year in Cleveland.

Consider it Miss Congeniality rules. It should not be too hot or cold; maybe you only need a light jacket. That means, for a lot of people, it’s time to get out and enjoy the early autumn days in northern Ohio.

And readers are taking advantage of it. When asked what they liked to do outside during this time of year, one said going to Marblehead Lighthouse and spending time on the lake in a boat. For another, it’s the perfect temperature to try some of the wineries in Ashtabula and Lake counties.

For others, answers ranged widely, from trails in Brecksville and Rocky River reservations or Lakeview Cemetery in Cuyahoga County to visiting Bear Town Park or Sunny Lakes Park in Geauga County.

The added benefit for outdoor activities this year has been dry weather – with the only significant rain so far coming on Sept. 6. Good for outdoor activities; not so good for plants.

This ideal weather time period has held true for years, historical records show, though it has been moving a bit later.

In the early aughts, the data showed that weekend temperatures in the 70s were most commonly around the first three weekends of September. A decade later, the data showed that in the 2010s, the last weekend in September had the highest chance of achieving the perfect temperature, with other prominent weekends being in July and August.

Most recently, September has trended warmer than the same period 10 years earlier – a jump of 4 degrees or more toward the end of the month, National Weather Service data shows, moving those perfect temperatures to later in the year, sometimes even into October.

Warmer temperatures mean that 80-degree days, once reserved for the dead of summer, now often linger in September. Thursday was the 11th day of 80-degree or higher temperatures for the month. By this time of the month, through Sept. 19, there are normally only seven such days, with a record of 16 in 1947.

It has not gone unnoticed by readers. Some now associate the perfect temperatures with catching the foilage in places like Orchard Hills Park or Holden Arboretum, an event that typically happens at the end of September and in October.

It’s not an exact science. We can’t predict when perfect weather will strike better than National Weather Service forecasters. (We tried.) But we can glean a few things from the last three decades of data.

Since the 1980s, 20% of “perfect weekends” – those with temperatures in the 70s on both Saturday and Sunday – still occur on the first weekend of September, the most out of any weekend in September or October. This also includes the most recent decade, where four out of 18 weeks in the 70s happened during this time.

But more perfect weekends are happening later in the month and even into October. From 2014 to 2023, half of perfect weekends were on the fourth or fifth weekend of September or in October, compared to less than a third of perfect temperature weekends in the same period from 2004 to 2013. From 1994 to 2003, the number is 41%.

Readers are even associating festivals like Ashtabula’s Covered Bridge Festival and Burton’s Apple Butter Festival, both of which take place in mid-October, as good events for 70-degree weekends.

The last instance of a perfect weekend entirely in the 70s last year was Sept. 30 and Oct 1..

In 2022, the last weekend with both days in the 70s was actually the first week of November, one of two times perfect weekends occurred so late in the last decade, the other being in 2020. The only other time since the 1980s this occurred in November was in 1990.

Since 2012, we’ve always had late September weekends in the 70s.

In any case, the warm weather extends the amount of outdoor activities you can do for a little longer, and readers told us some of their favorite places and things to do when the weather is just this good.

• “One of my favorites is Sandy Ridge Reservation in North Ridgeville. It is a beautiful park with gravel walking paths around the lake, wooded areas, and fields. There is a plethora of wildlife, including but not limited to egrets, bald eagles, herons, swifts, frogs, ducks, swans, turtles, muskrats and raccoons. Each time you visit, you see something different.”
• “My favorite outdoor area is Edgewater Park. Anything from exercising, picnicking, swimming, roller skating, flying kites, playing football, biking, playing games, surfing and fishing, among others.”

• “I love Sunny Lakes Park in Geauga County on East Mennonite Road. It has walking trails, plenty of wildlife and I like that it has lots of benches where us out-of-shape folks can still enjoy the weather and nature. You can rent little boats and really feel like you are in the wilderness and Aurora Farms Outlet stores and Restaurants are right down the road!”
• “Swine Creek in Geauga County is my hideaway. Hardly ever anyone else there. Geauga County has won my heart with its nature”
• “Painesville Township Park – right on Lake Erie with a beautiful new walking path. And check out the pier for fishing or simply soaking in the glory of a Lake Erie sunset.”
• “Penitentiary Glen Reservation in Kirtland is located on the former site of the Halle family. This was the family’s farm and summer estate. But now there’s a wildlife center, refreshments, train rides, a deep gorge, forest, fields and 8.5 miles of hiking trails.”
• “Walking in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in September and enjoying the fall wildflowers. Seeing an occasional turtle or heron. Maybe stopping at the Winking Lizard afterward.”

• “Lake Erie boating anytime, weekday or night.”
• “So let’s go with the Acacia Reservation in Lyndhurst, just across from Beachwood Place. It’s kind of a weird place to have a park, but it’s readily accessible, and there’s a ton of wildlife.”

Zachary Smith is the data reporter for cleveland.com. You can reach him at [email protected].