October in Palm Beach County: Oktoberfest in Lantana, Spookyville, the Delray Halloween Parade, the Mullet Run at the Inlets and the First Night You Open the Windows (2026)

Oct 16

Quick answer: The National Weather Service treats October 15 as the official end of South Florida's wet season, and the normals at the West Palm Beach airport slide from a high of 85 and a low of 73 on the 16th to 82 and 69 on Halloween. The calendar for the back half of the month: the last weekend of Oktoberfest at the American German Club on Lantana Road, October 16 to 18; Fright Nights and the kid-sized Spookyville at the South Florida Fairgrounds; Jupiter HarbourFest at Harbourside Place the 16th and 17th; HallowMarine at Loggerhead Marinelife Center the 17th and 18th; Halloween in downtown Delray Beach on Saturday the 24th, trick-or-treating on Atlantic Avenue at 11 and the parade at 1; Boca's Howl-O-Ween dog costume contest the same morning; and on Halloween itself, LagoonFest on the West Palm Beach waterfront and the Haunted Pirate Fest in downtown Boynton Beach. Outside: stone crab season opened October 15, snook is open, the mullet run is working the inlets, turtle nesting season and the beach lighting rule end October 31, and West Palm Beach has king tides flagged October 22 through November 12. If you're house hunting, this is the month to see a place with the windows open.

People ask me what Palm Beach County is like in the fall, and the honest answer is that it depends which half of October you mean. The first half is still summer with a costume on. By the back half the rain shuts off, the mornings drop into the low 70s and then the 60s, the mullet are pouring down the beach, and every town from Jupiter to Boca has a Halloween thing going. Here's what I'd put on the calendar from the 16th through the 31st, with the dates I could confirm this week. Things change; check before you drive.

The weather, and the date that matters

The Weather Service office in Miami, which covers Palm Beach County, treats October 15 as the official end of the wet season, so as of this week we are in the dry season on paper. The 1991 to 2020 normals for the airport in West Palm Beach back that up. The normal high slides from 85 on the 16th to 82 on the 31st and the normal low from 73 to 69; the low doesn't get down to 70 until the 27th. Normal daily rainfall drops from about two tenths of an inch a day at the start of the month to about an eighth of an inch by Halloween. The first morning you open the windows and leave them open is usually somewhere in these two weeks.

Two wrinkles this year. First, the county came into the fall in moderate drought: the Weather Service's mid September drought statement had the airport at 25.67 inches of rain since May 1, about six and a half inches and 20 percent below normal, with Lake Okeechobee more than three feet below its normal level. The Climate Prediction Center leans toward above normal rain for October through December, good for the lake and less good for Oktoberfest. Second, king tides. The City of West Palm Beach's 2026 forecast lists a king tide period from October 22 through November 12, with high tides within three inches of flood stage October 26 through 29, and another window November 22 through 29. Expect sunny-day flooding on the low streets near the Intracoastal around each peak and less clearance under the fixed bridges if you boat. More on what that means for a buyer at the end.

Oktoberfest on Lantana Road: one weekend left

The American German Club's Oktoberfest, the 52nd one, runs two weekends and the second is this one: Friday, October 16 from 6 to 11, Saturday the 17th from 2 to 11, and Sunday the 18th from noon to 8, at the club at 5111 Lantana Road. Advance tickets are sold only through Vivenu: $12 for Friday or Sunday and $15 for Saturday for ages 15 and up, or $20 and $25 at the gate. Kids 7 to 14 are $8 either way and 6 and under are free. Parking is $20 at the club and across the street at Buttonwood Park, with limited spaces, or free at Diamond View Elementary and Tradewinds Middle with a free shuttle; rideshare drop-off is at Lantana Road and Myers Road.

Froschhaxn Express, over from Germany, plays the pavilion and the King Guys Band plays the clubhouse. There's a keg tapping, a parade of flags, folk dancers, a stein-holding contest, a carnival with rides and a playground for the small ones, Oktoberfest bier imported from Germany, and the schnitzel and bratwurst you came for. No pets, rain or shine. Sunday is the gentler session if you have small kids or a low tolerance for oompah.

The fairgrounds: Fright Nights by night, Spookyville by day

The South Florida Fairgrounds on Southern Boulevard runs the two biggest Halloween operations in the county, built for completely different people.

Fright Nights is the haunted house park, Thursdays 6 to 11 and Fridays and Saturdays 6 to midnight, with the haunts opening at 7. The remaining nights are October 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 29 and 30, so the last night is Friday the 30th, not Halloween. General admission is $48.50 for one night and includes 40 Fright Credits, which covers the three haunted houses at 10 credits each. Parking is $10, card only. The fair says parental discretion for small children, and I'd put it more bluntly: this is for teenagers and adults who enjoy being chased.

Spookyville is the opposite: trick-or-treating through the historic buildings of Yesteryear Village at 601-7 Sansbury's Way. The fair's page lists Saturday October 17, Sunday the 18th, Friday the 23rd, Saturday the 24th, Sunday the 25th, Friday the 30th and Halloween itself; one other listing I saw starts it on the 18th, so call before you drive out on the 17th. Fridays run 5 to 9 and weekends 11 to 9. At the gate it's $10 for adults and $15 for kids, which is backwards from every other event on earth until you realize the kids get the rides, a trick-or-treat bag at the entrance and the candy stations in front of the old buildings. A family pack of two and two is $45; under 1 is free. Costume parade Sundays at 1, a petting zoo, a light show from 7, strollers welcome.

Downtown West Palm Beach

The GreenMarket on the waterfront is back on Saturdays, 8:30 to 1:30. Mr. Jack O' Lanterns has a pumpkin patch at 419 Lakeview Avenue through November 1, 10 to 9 Fridays and Saturdays, 10 to 8 Sundays and 11 to 8 the rest of the week, with pumpkin bowling and decorating. Clematis by Night is Thursday the 22nd, 6 to 9, free. The downtown authority has a Yappy Hour HOWL-o-ween with a pop-up dog park Friday the 23rd, 4 to 7, free, and the Moon Crawl, a Halloween bar crawl down Clematis, Saturday the 24th from 8 to midnight, $18.99 with costume prizes.

On Halloween morning the waterfront hosts LagoonFest, the 13th one, 8:30 to 2, free, next door to the GreenMarket: scientist-guided boat tours of the Lake Worth Lagoon on the Hakuna Matata catamaran, a kids' zone with a gopher tortoise burrow and a Lagoon Creatures costume contest. If you're thinking about living on the water here, that's an hour well spent.

The Palm Beach Zoo on Summit Boulevard is the one place I expected a daytime Halloween event for kids and couldn't find one posted. What is posted is Wickedly Wild, the Halloween edition of its 21-and-up Wild Night Out, Saturday the 24th from 6 to 9, $25 or $20 for members, with cocktails, DJs and after-hours animal encounters. Call the zoo if you want the daytime version; I couldn't confirm one.

Jupiter and Juno Beach

Jupiter HarbourFest is a free waterfront music festival at Harbourside Place, produced by the Palm Beach North Chamber of Commerce: Friday the 16th from 4 to 10 and Saturday the 17th from noon to 10, with a coastal-country lineup, food and drink, and vendors. General admission is free; a tastings ticket is $50 and VIP is $100. They recommend rideshare; the garages are a walk away.

HallowMarine at Loggerhead Marinelife Center, 14200 U.S. 1 in Juno Beach, is Saturday the 17th and Sunday the 18th, 10 to 3, free: sustainable trick-or-treating, a costume parade and contest at 12:30 with a prize for best ocean theme, a scavenger hunt, visits with the sea turtle patients and a Spooky Creature Feature at 2:30. Inland at Riverbend Park in Jupiter, the county naturalists do Wild & Wicked: Florida's Creepy Critters, Saturday the 24th at 9:30, all ages, $5 with a reservation. The Town of Jupiter's own calendar wouldn't load for me, so if the town has a trunk-or-treat this year, I couldn't confirm it.

Delray Beach: Halloween on the Avenue

Delray does Halloween the Saturday before, and this year that's October 24. The day starts with the Witches of Delray ride, the 15th one, 8 to 11, from City Hall to Old School Square, raising money for the Achievement Centers for Children and Families; riders register in advance. Trick-or-treating on the Avenue runs 11 to 1 with the participating merchants along Atlantic. The Halloween Parade steps off at 1, from Federal to Old School Square, where Kidsfest runs 11 to 3 with food, vendors, crafts and entertainment, all free. The winter GreenMarket is on the square 9 to 2 that morning too. Get there early; parking on a Delray Saturday is a contact sport.

The rest of the Delray list: Sounds of the Set at Libby Wesley Plaza Thursday the 22nd, 5:30 to 8:30, free; the Historical Society's 12th Fall Fest Friday the 30th at 5; and the SOMething Scary haunted house and block party at Space of Mind that same night, 6 to 10, free. The city's own special events page was down when I checked, so I couldn't confirm the Parks and Recreation side.

Boca Raton and Boynton Beach

Boca's Howl-O-Ween is Saturday the 24th, 9 to noon, at Countess de Hoernle Park on Spanish River Boulevard, free: a dog costume contest, a dog race, a trail of treats and photo ops. Halloween by the Sea at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center on North Ocean Boulevard is Sunday the 18th in two sessions, 4:30 and 5:45, built for ages 2 to 6: preschool games, crafts, a treat and a photo with Luna the sea turtle mascot. It's $10 per child for Boca residents and $13 otherwise, parents free, registered in advance through the city's WebTrac system.

Boynton Beach saves its big one for Halloween weekend. The Haunted Pirate Fest and Mermaid Splash takes over East Ocean Avenue and the Centennial Park amphitheater Saturday, October 31 from noon to 10 and Sunday, November 1 from noon to 6, free: live music, live cannons, the Field of Danger stunt shows, a mermaid grotto, a treasure dig and bounce houses for the kids, a pirate encampment, and a haunted trail after dark on Saturday. Park at Veterans Memorial Park on North Federal or ride the shuttles from the Hester Center, the Carolyn Sims Center, Pence Park or the senior center. The 2026 schedule of bands and shows was still marked "coming soon" when I checked. If you'd rather start Halloween quietly, Green Cay Nature Center west of Boynton does a Mega Monsters reptiles-and-amphibians program at 9:30 that morning, $5, ages 5 and up, reservation required.

Wellington's and Palm Beach Gardens' calendars both refused to load for me this week, so their fall festivals and trunk-or-treats are the ones I'd call the city about, and Lake Worth Beach's calendar came up empty. Out at Okeeheelee Nature Center, the county does a Twilight on the Trails walk with live animal ambassadors Tuesday the 27th at 6:30, $5, with a reservation.

Pumpkin patches

The one I can confirm is Mr. Jack O' Lanterns on Lakeview Avenue downtown, above. I looked for the church patches, which are usually the good ones, and couldn't find a 2026 page for any of them, so I'm not going to send you to a parking lot that might be empty. Wherever you buy, buy late if you're carving: a carved pumpkin on a Florida porch is a three-day pumpkin, and the normal high is still 82 on Halloween.

Outside: mullet, stone crabs, snook and turtles

The mullet run is why half the trucks at the Boynton Inlet and the Jupiter jetty this month are from somewhere else. FWC's profile puts it simply: the adult striped mullet migrate offshore in large schools to spawn, and what that looks like from a jetty is a dark school moving along the beach with everything that eats mullet behind it. The two county inlet parks are the spots. Ocean Inlet Park at 6990 North Ocean Boulevard in Ocean Ridge has the jetty and inlet fishing open 24 hours; DuBois Park at 19075 DuBois Road at Jupiter Inlet has a jetty and a snorkeling lagoon, sunrise to sunset. If you're after the snook following the bait, the Atlantic season is open until December 15, one fish between 28 and 32 inches per person per day, and you need the snook permit on top of your license.

Stone crab season opened October 15 and runs to May 1: one gallon of claws per person or two per boat, claws at least two and seven-eighths inches, up to five traps per person, and anyone 16 and up registers the traps for free at GoOutdoorsFlorida.com. Stone crab night at home with the sliders open is one of the better arguments for living here.

Sea turtle nesting season ends October 31, and so does the county's lights-off-the-beach period, which runs March 1 through October 31. The county's Environmental Resources Management department says its beaches have more sea turtle nests per mile than anywhere else in the United States, roughly two million hatchlings a year, which is why the rule is taken seriously: no lights on the beach at night, including flashlights and phones, and turn off the lights you don't need even a few blocks inland, because sky glow carries.

If you're looking at houses this month

October is the best month of the year to see a house honestly. Open the windows. Turn the air off and see how the place breathes with a northeast breeze. Look at the roof and the gutters while it's dry. Then ask three questions that only matter here. One, where does this street sit for king tides? My advice to anyone buying near the water is an elevation certificate and a real flood insurance quote before you fall in love, and the week of October 26 is a free demonstration: drive the street at the morning high and see for yourself. Two, if the house is on the ocean side, what does the turtle lighting rule mean for the porch and the pool deck? It's not a problem, but you should know before you buy the fixtures. Three, if a boat is coming with the house, which inlet are you? Jupiter and Boynton are different lives, and standing on either jetty one evening during the run will tell you which one you are faster than any spreadsheet.

The relocation page covers the towns and the trade-offs from Tequesta to Boca, the buying page covers the process, and if you'd rather just ask, send me a message. The AI assistant in the corner of this page can handle the quick questions at midnight when I'm asleep.

Questions people ask about October here

What is the weather like in Palm Beach County in late October?

The 1991 to 2020 normals at the West Palm Beach airport go from a high of 85 and a low of 73 on October 16 to 82 and 69 on October 31, and the National Weather Service treats October 15 as the official end of the wet season. The normal low first drops below 70 on Halloween.

Is there a Halloween parade in Palm Beach County?

Yes. Delray Beach's Halloween Parade is Saturday, October 24, 2026, stepping off at 1 in the afternoon and running from Federal Highway to Old School Square, after trick-or-treating with the Atlantic Avenue merchants from 11 to 1. It's free.

When is Oktoberfest at the American German Club in Lantana?

The 52nd Oktoberfest runs October 9 to 11 and 16 to 18, 2026, at 5111 Lantana Road: Fridays 6 to 11, Saturdays 2 to 11, Sundays noon to 8. Advance tickets for ages 15 and up are $12 for Friday or Sunday and $15 for Saturday, with gate prices of $20 and $25; kids 7 to 14 are $8 and 6 and under are free.

What is the difference between Fright Nights and Spookyville?

Both are at the South Florida Fairgrounds. Fright Nights is the haunted house park on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights through October 30, $48.50 with three haunts included, and the fair advises parental discretion for small children. Spookyville is daytime trick-or-treating and rides in Yesteryear Village on select days through October 31, $10 for adults and $15 for kids at the gate.

When does stone crab season open in Florida?

October 15, running through May 1. The recreational limit is one gallon of claws per person or two per vessel, claws must be at least two and seven-eighths inches, each person may fish up to five traps, and harvesters 16 and older must register their traps for free with FWC.

When are the king tides in West Palm Beach this fall?

The City of West Palm Beach's 2026 forecast lists king tide periods of October 22 through November 12 and November 22 through 29, with high tides within three inches of flood stage October 26 through 29 and November 24 through 27. Streets near the Intracoastal can flood on a sunny day during those windows.

When does sea turtle nesting season end in Palm Beach County?

October 31. The county's lights-off-the-beach period runs March 1 through October 31, so keep flashlights and phones off the sand after dark through the end of the month and keep oceanfront lights off or shielded until then.

Talk with William. If you're thinking about Palm Beach County, the back half of October is the time to come look. I can line up houses from Jupiter to Boca Raton around whatever else you're here for, Oktoberfest included. Call or text (772) 800-2274 or send a message.

General information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Prices, fees and club rules change; confirm current details with the club and association. William Merchant, REALTOR®, RE/MAX Gold. Each RE/MAX office is independently owned and operated.

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William Merchant