With bodies of water receding and brush fires throughout the state, it was clearly a dry fall for the Pioneer Valley and new data analysis confirms the season was historically dry for western Massachusetts.

Preliminary National Weather Service data for Greenfield and Amherst shows the region had its driest meteorological fall on record — Sept. 1 to Nov. 30 — as weather stations in those communities observed just 5.03 inches and 3.76 inches of precipitation, respectively, over the three-month period, according to analysis by Michael Rawlins, associate director of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Climate System Research Center. The preliminary data is drawn from the Southeast Regional Climate Center.

In total, Greenfield saw approximately 7.74 fewer inches of precipitation during the fall, while Amherst saw 8.98 fewer inches. Weather observation data in Greenfield is somewhat new, as numbers have only been collected for 24 years, but the Amherst data is a different story, as it is based off 127 years of observation.

“We’ve seen very dry weather this fall. There’s been a lack of weather systems that typically bring rainfall,” Rawlins wrote in an email. “Southern New England often is transited by weakening tropical systems during fall. That hasn’t occurred.”

Massachusetts as a whole saw its second driest October on record, according to Rawlins, while the two-month period of September and October was the driest on record for central and western Massachusetts.

Rawlins noted other areas around the Northeast, too, saw record-breaking falls, as climate sites at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City; Newark, New Jersey; Wilmington, Delaware; and Bangor, Maine, saw their driest falls on record.

The dry fall continues a regional trend over the last several years of extreme wet and dry spells in the Pioneer Valley. In 2021, the region saw an extremely wet summer, followed by a severe drought in 2022, which was then followed up by weekly deluges in 2023. In that year, the town of Conway received upwards of 21 inches of rain in July, the most in the nation.

These extreme shifts in weather, sometimes called “Weather whiplash,” may be a signal of climate change that average people can observe, according to Rawlins and Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth. It should be noted that experts caution against taking weather trends, which are short-term, and applying them to climate projections, which often take decades of data into account.

“Climate scientists have long expected to see increased weather swings associated with a warming globe,” Francis said in 2023 “Hot/dry spells are now hotter and drier, wet spells are bringing heavier downpours, and weather regimes of all sorts are expected to become more persistent.”

Drought continues, but burning bans loosening

The result of this extended dry period is a continuing drought across the vast majority of Massachusetts, which has led the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs to declare a “critical drought” for every region, except Cape Cod and the islands south of it.

Though the drought continues, complete burning bans around Hampshire and Franklin counties continue to be lifted following several rainstorms in the last few weeks. Several area fire departments, including Amherst, Northampton, Whately, Shelburne and Buckland, have lifted their bans to allow residents to have backyard fires for cooking and campfires. Most bonfires, unattended fires and the burning of brush are still prohibited.

“With cooler temperatures, higher relative humidity and precipitation moving in across western Massachusetts, the extreme risk of outdoor fires spreading and growing quickly has declined significantly,” Whately Fire Chief JP Kennedy wrote in a Nov. 26 Facebook post for his department. “Please remember that without additional significant rainfall, we may see an additional ban before snow flies.”

As for the upcoming winter, Rawlins said the weather seen over the last few months likely won’t affect what’s coming after the holiday season.

“Dry weather in fall is unlikely to significantly influence weather during the subsequent winter,” he said.

It might be worth bundling up, though, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s monthly outlook is leaning toward below-average temperatures for Massachusetts “based on the anomalous cold through early December.”