Wandering an aisle at Spirit Halloween in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood this week, Clay Smith was deciding whether to pivot his costume from a warm, one-piece banana suit to a lighter outfit, like perhaps that of a pool boy.
Krystal Colon, who was also Halloween shopping, said she was skipping the annual parade in Greenwich Village and would instead celebrate her favorite holiday away from the city.
“With the heat and the subway and the costumes,” she said, “it’s going to be too much to handle.”
Temperatures on Halloween reached theupper 70s in New York City, far from the crisp fall days New Yorkers are used to this time of year.
“I don’t think, living here all my life, it’s been 80 degrees on Halloween,” Mr. Smith, 26, who grew up in Brooklyn, said. While it’s not forecast to hit 80 degrees, it was getting close.
“I don’t think I like it,” he added.
Cities across the Northeast were expected to experience temperatures in the high 70s and lower 80s on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service, which said on Tuesday that it could be one of the warmest Halloweens on record for the region. In New York City, it was 77 degrees as of 1 p.m.
It has been a relatively warm month for the city, ranking in the 25 warmest Octobers in New York City in 155 years of record-keeping, and Halloween is likely to be the warmest day this week. The temperature on Thursday was expected to fall short of the record high of 81 degrees set at Central Park in 1946.
A daily average of 57 degrees is typical for this month.
The unusual warmth, combined with a dry streak that left New York without rain for nearly a month, has left some New Yorkers feeling like it’s not quite the spooky season they’re used to.
Sal Risi and his wife, Stephanie Risi, who both grew up on Long Island, said that they planned to take their nephew trick-or-treating around Manhattan, but that the warm weather “takes away from the vibe,” Mr. Risi said.
Ms. Risi recalled trying to fit turtlenecks under her costumes as a child. Bundling up, she said, was “part of the experience.”
Some New Yorkers have been lamenting past Halloweens that were marked by chilly weather, multiple layers and sometimes even snow on the ground. Others were excited to celebrate in the heat.
At Greg’s Pumpkin Patch in Brooklyn’s South Slope neighborhood, Rachel Tiemann, a St. Louis native, was picking out fall decorations with her 6-year-old daughter (who would be Wonder Woman), but noted the weather had been “odd” this year.
“We’re seeing all this autumnal leaves and all of the harvest stuff out,” Ms. Tiemann said. “But then it feels like summer. It’s kind of weird.”
As a child in St. Louis, she said, her mother used to build layers into her costumes so she wouldn’t have to wear a coat.
Despite the unusual weather, many New Yorkers are still in the holiday spirit. At the pumpkin patch, families and couples picked out pumpkins to carve and corn husks to display.
A line for a Spirit Halloween in Brooklyn went out the door and down the block on Tuesday evening. On the sidewalk outside, street vendors sold Disney costumes, horror movie masks and pumpkin buckets.
Two Brooklyn natives, Anthony Taylor, 27, and Johnny Vasquez, 28, said they were hoping to find last-minute costumes and accessories. For them, the warm weather was a bonus.
“Everybody’s going to be out,” Mr. Taylor said. With “the heat and Halloween, people might go crazy this year,” he said. “Hopefully it’s a good time.”
In the end, Mr. Smith, who had been deciding between costumes at Spirit, went with the banana.
It was sleeveless. “I could wear it like a tank top,” he said.
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