ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — When you think of September, the things that usually come to mind are the leaves changing color, pumpkin spice, and cooler temperatures. Despite that, more often than you think September can get HOT.

In Rochester, we’ve been keeping fairly detailed weather records since 1872, or just over 150 years now. Out of all of those Septembers, 65 or 43% of them, have managed to record at least on 90° or hotter day. So it can get hot pretty frequently despite average highs ranging between 68-78°.

While we may get to 90° or better in a one-off fairly regularly in September, it takes quite a bit more to do that three days in a row to qualify as a heat wave. Adding that into the mix, officially it’s only happened 16 times in Rochester’s weather records. Definitely a bit less frequent.

The most recent heat wave for September was back in 2017 from September 24 to 27. The longest which stretched all the way from August 28 to September 5 lasted a total of nine days, five of those being in September. That ties in with 1931 which also lasted five days from September 9 to 13 for the longest September heat wave.