Finally Time To Bring Those Plants You Want To Save Indoors

Flowers on our St. Albans, Vermont deck looked amazing
for October 20 but we'll finally have to take them indoors
or let them go as very belated frosty weather is due 
over the weekend. 

 While enjoying a glorious moonset with a shimmering Lake Champlain in that moon light, I had to run back indoors to get a jacket. I was cold! 

The cold shouldn't have surprised me. It's the third week in October. It's supposed to be cold in the morning.  We simply haven't had much chill yet, and I still don't have my sea legs in dealing with it. I'm still marveling at how little of this weather we've had. 

As of 6 a.m. in Burlington, it was 42 degrees. Actually a couple degrees above average for a low temperature this time of year. 

WPTZ-TV meteorologist and numbers cruncher extraordinaire Ben Frechette tells us, Burlington has a great chance at breaking the record for latest first autumn day with temperatures under 40 degrees. The record is October 21, 1905. 

And even that record is suspicious in a way.  Back then, Burlington's temperature readings were taken closer to Lake Champlain, where it is warmer. Now they're taken at further inland at the Burlington International Airport in South Burlington. That's further from the lake, and thus usually chillier in the morning. Chances are it was in the 30s where the airport would eventually stand back in 1905 before October 21.

In other words, this all makes the lack of under 40 degree weather all the more remarkable.

The average date for the first morning under 40 degrees in Burlington, by the way, is September 9.  So yeah, we're really late.

All records trends must end, and this one will too. Mount Mansfield just had its latest first freeze on record yesterday. And it will finally go below 40 degrees in Burlington this weekend. 

We'll have a couple more warm days ahead of the next cold front. It will pop up into the low 60s for many of us today, then stay fairly warm tonight. Some showers arrive amidst the warmth Thursday and then temperatures will start to go downhill again. 

It will be noticeably cooler on Friday, and that's the day you'll need to take inside any plants out on your deck or porch that you want to save. It's also the day for most of us to day goodbye to the still remarkably healthy flowers still out there in the gardens.  

There's still some debate as to how cold it will get this weekend, but most of us should expect a frost and/or freeze at least once sometimes between Saturday night and Tuesday morning. It still could manage to stay above freezing in the warmer, broader valleys during that time, especially right next to Lake Champlain. 

The colder forecasts have snow showers all the way down to valley floors on Sunday.  The warmer forecasts keep daytime temperatures pretty reasonable near 50 degrees during the weekend and early next week.

Either way, the chilly forecast is by no means odd. What is weird is the warmth we had so far this month. 

By the way, we're probably not done with balmy weather. After this cool spell passes, signs point to a big warmup during the middle of next week.