Dawn,
So far it is looking good here for close to 2 weeks. Know that is subject to change. That will put us up to our normal time or past. The wind has changed and is coming from the south. Odd that further east and south may see the cooler temps. They had an earlier spring so guess a little bit of a trade off. Jay

Dawn

My Stepdad said we had a very light frost this morning. I did not go out till 8:30 and I dont see how there could have been any frost, but it was cold. I live at the bottom of the valley and often I will have frost before he does.

I will keep my fingers crossed because it is forcasted to be cooler tonight

Larry

Lincoln county (Guthrie) is north of us but not that far north. We live in the highest part of Midwest City so we sometimes don't get to freezing even when other parts of Okla. County does. TAFB was built here for that reason as it is the highest point in central Oklahoma which made it easier for pilots to see in the night back in the 1940's.

I'm really not all that concerned about a frost but hope it does get cold enough to send my 'Stink Bug Buddies' into hibernation until next year!

Keith

Jay, It looks good here for the next couple of weeks too, until about mid-Oct., assuming we don't have a surprise frost here tonight. (It is possible because we stayed cooler than forecast all day today and our place is in a very low-lying frost pocket.)

I'm not surprised NE OK has a frost advisory because they have had some really cool mornings lately, but seeing the advisory come as far down south as Pottawatomie County did surprise me a bit.

I guess the sulphurs and monarchs sent everyone a message by veering towards the west while migrating, because northern/eastern/and parts of central OK are going to be very cold tonight, but the monarchs have been making their way through the parts that are staying warmer. Hmmm. What did the butterflies know and when did they know it? Were they hitching a ride on the wind currents or were they warning us of impending cold in the eastern portion of the state?

As an aside, I went several days last week without seeing a hummer, then suddenly, we had hummers all over the place on Fri.-Sat. and none today, so I think the Fri.-Sat. bunch of hummers were migrating to get out in front of and stay ahead of the colder weather.

Larry, I'm in a low-lying frost pocket in the Red River Valley and we have had very early frosts some years hit plants without damaging them, likely because the frost was on the plants only for the briefest of periods. I've also had some tender annual flowers survive 3 or 4 light frosts before a hard frost finally got them. It also is possible you had light wind and he didn't, so frost settled on his plants and not yours. A friend of our who lives about a mile from us but on much higher ground never sees as frost as early as we do.

I'm even worried about our forecast lows here since we went 5 or 6 degrees lower than forecast last night. With a forecast of 44 for tonight, a dip 6 degrees colder than that would give us the right temperature range to allow frost to form if the other conditions were right.

Our coldest temps lately occur shortly before sunup, roughly between 6 and 7:15 a.m. and I am usually awake by 6 a.m., so I'll run outside and watch to see if frost has formed or is forming first thing in the morning. If it has or is forming, I'll hose the frost off the plants or turn on the sprinkler or something to try to mitigate the damage.

We just returned from Lowe's a short while ago, and our Lowe's still has tons of warm-season plants, including many tomato plants in 6" pots, and they weren't covering up anything so maybe they aren't worried about it. If I were them, I would be a little concerned.

Keith, You'd better hope your stink bug buddies freeze. The alternative is that they are cuddling to stay warm (like some people do during an ice-storm-induced power outage) and will be giving birth in spring to many babies "made" during this cold night. That's a worst possible case scenario, you know.

I am not liking how cold it feels here right now. It feels really chilly now that the sun is almost down and I am going to watch and see how many degrees we drop between now and 10 p.m.

Dawn

Wow,Just checked the mesonet and they have revised our forecast low for tonight from 44 earlier to 37 now and the frost advisory now stretches down south of Norman. I still ain't skeerd though unless the local weathermen make no mention of it at 10:00.

As far as my 'buddies' go they have been busy cuddling now for a couple of weeks as their babies are everywhere...

Keith

JUST SOUTH OF NORMAN????? WHAT YOU TALKIN' 'BOUT, WILLIS???

Holy #*#!! I've got to go pull in a couple of house plants that are still out on the decks....

Thank you ALL for the warning. Better safe than sorry. And Keith, I'm with ya hopin' the bugs are NOT tapped in to our sources....

Paula

Sure enuf....I just scurried outside and brought in plants that I thought were safe for at LEAST a week or 2 more. Brought some pots of peppers up close to the south side of the house too, but didn't get this warning in enough time to cover my fall crop of purple hulls...(sad face). What FEW peppers I had still in garden are subject to the "Powers That Be". Dang it!

The local 10 o'clock news is on and the headline is "Frost Advisory". Heh! My "people" here are already ON it! Hope no one suffers severe dissappointments from this early frost! DH said it's an "Indian Frost". Ever heard of that? I think I like "Indian Summer" better.

And "they" said we'd have a "calmer, nicer" winter this year....I'm thinking "they" don't know WHAT they're talking about...but ....only in Oklahoma. Just keep in mind Will Rogers comment about "if you don't like the weather...."

Shivering Paula in Norman...brrr!

I managed to get my citrus trees that I have in pots in the garage in time. I was not expecting this!

Makes me wonder if the prediction for a milder winter will hold true or not.

YIKES....

One of the local news stations is reporting only 43 here, but the thermometer on my back porch reads 37 and it's another hour until sunrise. DH has already left for work and he had to scrap frost from the windshield.

We are 46 here this morning like they predicted. Sure it will drop another degree or two. Did a scan around south central and south east Kansas and also around the northern half of OK. Seems the coldest temps I saw were 36-37 in north central and NE OK. Hope it doesn't drop much more as the sun rises. Sun rise is normally our coldest time. Hopefully we will have a few more weeks after this scare. One forecaster wast saying 92-94 for tomorrow here yesterday but has backed off now into the upper 80's. Jay

Keith, I turned off my computer early and didn't check before bedtime to see if they revised our forecast downward, but I think it is likely they did. At that point, I didn't want to know because I couldn't do anything about it anyway. (sigh)

They said 44 and we went to 35.

Paula, At this time of year, anything can happen. When I posted the frost advisory, I thought that you and I and our gardens would be 'safe' but as the temps dropped rapidly here in late afternoon/early evening, I started wondering about it going colder than we were expecting, and it did.

I still think La Nina will give us a generally milder winter but, on the other hand, the weather has done some bizarre things this year that are hard to understand in terms of climatology, so who knows?

We are having an earlier autumn, but that's not necessarily surprising even if it isn't what we want.

Ezzirah, I am glad you got the citrus trees inside. I still think we will have that milder winter because historical records of La Nina winters support that and we do have a La Nina pattern. Still, there is always a chance we'll have an odd, unexplainably cold winter because ....well, because we are in Oklahoma and our weather does odd things here. I know that our weather swings wildly from one extreme to another because of our location in the middle of the country. At least the weather is never boring here.

Paula, When I saw your message earlier about Ken having to scrape frost off the windshield, I ran right outside (we were at 36 then) and checked two car windshields. No frost. After our low then dropped to 35, I ran back outside and checked two other car windshields, and found frost on one and on the ground nearby, but not on the others. Why one car got frosted and the other three didn't just baffles me and they all were parked relatively close to one another.

Jay, You stayed a lot warmer than we did. I haven't looked at the updated forecast this morning, but as of yesterday we were supposed to be back in the mid-80s by Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm not sure if that is still the forecast. It is COLD here this morning and I'm heading out now to walk the dogs....wearing sweats instead of shorts. I guess summer is over for sure. : )

Dawn