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The Ground Around Columbus Is Still Summer-Warm as the Days Get Shorter
Why is the soil still warm in November in Columbus, Georgia?
Soil a couple of inches down around Columbus and the rest of the Chattahoochee Valley is still near 70 degrees because the ground releases its stored summer heat over weeks, long after the air has cooled.
Photo: Haberdoedas Photography / Pexels
Stand at the rail on the Chattahoochee RiverWalk at sunrise and the light arrives late now, a few minutes after 6:59, with the sun coming up low over the Phenix City side. It sets at 5:46. That leaves 10 hours and 47 minutes of daylight in Columbus today, and we are losing about another minute and 40 seconds every day, roughly 12 minutes a week.
The ground has not gotten the message. Soil temperatures a couple of inches down across the viewing area are running right around 70 degrees, between 69 and 71 — closer to a July reading than to the calendar.
There is a simple reason for the gap. Air responds to the sun in hours; dirt responds in weeks. Soil is heavy and slow, and the heat it soaked up over a long summer leaks back out a little at a time. What a thermometer reads two inches down is really an average of the last several weeks of weather, not yesterday's. So gardens from Hamilton to Cuthbert, pastures outside Lumpkin and the fields along the Chattahoochee below Eufaula are all still running on stored summer.
That matters if you have a shovel. Roots keep growing in soil this warm even when the tops of plants have quit for the year, which is why November is a good stretch to put in shrubs, trees, garlic and pansies around LaGrange, Opelika and Manchester. The midday sun is weak enough now that the ultraviolet index tops out in the mid 3s, but the planting window is wide open underfoot.
The December solstice comes Monday, December 21, at 10:03 in the morning, 47 days from now. The ground will go on cooling well past it — the coldest soil of the year shows up weeks after the shortest day, for exactly the same reason it is still 70 degrees today.
Right now in Columbus, Georgia
71°Temperature
70°Dew point
96%Humidity
4 mphWind — southeast
29.89"Pressure
The next seven days
Day
High
Low
Rain
Conditions
TONIGHT
—
65°
13%
Mostly Cloudy
TODAY
80°
61°
40%
Chance Rain Showers
FRI
78°
51°
1%
Mostly Sunny
SAT
72°
42°
0%
Sunny
SUN
72°
43°
1%
Sunny
MON
72°
42°
8%
Mostly Sunny
TUE
72°
44°
4%
Mostly Sunny
Written by the CNAW2 weather desk from CNAW2 weather desk data. Last updated November 5, 2026 at 1:35 AM Eastern. Covering Columbus and Phenix City, Auburn–Opelika, LaGrange, Eufaula and the rest of the 19-county CNAW viewing area.
