A rising jet stream will mean that the days leading up to the election on November 8 will be unseasonably warm. So warm, in fact, that the temperatures expected across the country will likely break a few records if current predictions come true.
And while global warming isn’t cool, there may be a silver lining to this hot November weather. According to Mashable, the unseasonably warm temperatures may boost voter turnout.
Midwestern cities are most likely to get the unusual weather, with the northeast and northwest expecting cooler temperatures.
A 2007 study that examined the impact of weather on voting patterns found that weather does affect voter turnout, particularly anomalous bad weather. In other words, an inch of rain in Seattle probably wouldn’t have the same effect as an inch in Phoenix. The study also showed that bad weather helped Republican candidates win, with a 2000 Al Gore victory quite possible had the weather been better.
As the Oklahoma Weather Lab notes:
“…When bad weather did suppress voter turnout, it tended to do so in favor of the Republican candidate, to the tune of around 2.5 percent for each inch of rainfall above normal. In fact, when they simulated the 14 presidential elections between 1948 and 2000 with sunny conditions nationwide, they found two instances in which bad weather likely changed the electoral college outcome—once in North Carolina in 1992, and once in Florida in 2000. The latter change is particularly notable, as it would have resulted in Al Gore rather than George Bush winning the presidential election that year.”
The unseasonably warm weather predicted for election week is becoming nothing new as record temperatures are now set year after year, with some months of 2016 being the warmest ever recorded around the globe. As USA Today reported earlier this year, the fall of 2016 will be the hottest ever recorded in American history, with “every square inch” of the country seeing hotter-than-average temperatures.
