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Valley Soil Still Holds Summer Heat as Daylight Drops Toward the Solstice
Why is the soil still warm in late October in Columbus, Georgia?
Soil about two and a half inches down near Columbus is still around 63 degrees because the ground gives up the summer's stored heat slowly, running weeks behind the shortening days.
Photo: Lisa Fotios / Pexels
Stand on the RiverWalk in Columbus at sunrise now and the sun does not clear the trees until 7:52. It leaves at 6:54 in the evening, which adds up to 11 hours and 3 minutes of daylight — barely over half the day. We are shedding about a minute and 48 seconds of it every 24 hours, close to 13 minutes a week. The slide does not stop until the December solstice, which arrives Monday, December 21 at 10:03 in the morning, 56 days from now.
Here is the part most people never check: the ground has not gone along with it. About two and a half inches down, soil in the Columbus area is sitting near 63 degrees, warmer than a lot of our mornings have been. Dirt is a slow, stubborn storage tank. Water and soil hold far more heat than air does, and a summer's worth of it has to leak upward and radiate away before the ground cools. So the soil runs weeks behind the calendar, which is why the ground is warmest in late summer, long after the longest day in June, and coldest in late winter, long after the shortest.
That shallow layer still swings with the sun. Over the course of a day it runs between 57 and 72 degrees, a 15-degree range at a depth you could reach with a trowel. Go deeper and the swings flatten out, because the heat has farther to travel in both directions. That is the whole argument for mulch: a few inches of pine straw over a bed in LaGrange or Opelika puts an insulating blanket between the sun and the root zone and keeps the soil from riding that roller every day.
For anyone with a shovel in Hamilton, Manchester, Cuthbert or Lumpkin, 60-degree soil is working soil. Roots keep growing in ground that warm even while the tops of plants have quit for the year, so trees and shrubs set out now have weeks of underground head start before winter shuts things down. It is also why a bare bed stays workable so much longer here than the shortening days suggest.
The other thing to plan around is the light itself. The midday sun this time of year still pushes the UV index to about 5 — moderate, not harmless. A long walk on the canyon rim at Providence Canyon near Lumpkin or along the ridge at F.D. Roosevelt State Park will still color your face, hat or no hat.
And evenings are about to change again. When clocks fall back Sunday, November 1, sunset across the valley will read nearly an hour earlier than it does today. The drive home from Opelika to Phenix City, or from Tuskegee out to Notasulga, will be a headlights-and-deer drive by the middle of next week. Nothing about the amount of daylight changes that Sunday — only where we put it. If you want the long light at Dowdell's Knob or over the water at Lake Harding, the window moves to the end of the workday, and it keeps narrowing until the third week of December.
Right now in Columbus, Georgia
74°Temperature
50°Dew point
43%Humidity
8 mphWind — northeast
30.23"Pressure
The next seven days
Day
High
Low
Rain
Conditions
TODAY
76°
46°
0%
Mostly Sunny
TUE
78°
49°
0%
Sunny
WED
78°
55°
0%
Sunny
THU
80°
58°
0%
Sunny
FRI
82°
61°
1%
Mostly Sunny
SAT
82°
62°
30%
Partly Sunny
SUN
80°
60°
32%
Chance Showers And Thunderstorms
Written by the CNAW 2 weather desk from CNAW 2 weather desk data. Last updated October 26, 2026 at 3:19 PM Eastern. Covering Columbus and Phenix City, Auburn–Opelika, LaGrange, Eufaula and the rest of the 19-county CNAW viewing area.
