Cold, Frost to Claim Midwest, Appalachian Gardens

By Alex Sosnowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist

October 2, 2012; 5:54PM,EDT

 

 

 

 

 

A wave of cold air and the frost that follows will mark an end to the growing season for gardeners in the Midwest and much of the Appalachians.
If you have any remaining tender fruits or vegetables in the garden, the time to harvest these remaining beauties is coming soon.
A press of cold air emerging over the northern Plains at midweek will gather momentum into this weekend. For areas over the northern Plains, the cold will be accompanied by snow.
Farther south and east, the chill will send temperatures into the 30s and even the 20s in some outlying areas from the central Plains to the Ohio Valley and eventually much of the Appalachians.
The outbreak of chilly air and frost potential is likely to last several days in many locations.
You may want to pick frost-weary flowers, such as Dahlias, and the last of the peppers, or all you may be left with is gooey toast.
It's time to locate the ice scraper. Allow some extra time to remove ice from your car in the mornings.
Parking your car under a tree that still has leaves on it may save a little scraping and time.
Where the wind diminishes over the countryside and in the valleys, a killing frost is a strong possibility with this outbreak.
Only areas immediately downwind of the warm Great Lake waters and nearest the Atlantic Ocean may be spared by a slight breeze and/or cloud cover.
As a result, St. Louis, Cincinnati and even the metro areas around Chicago and Detroit can be visited by Jack Frost this weekend.
While the coldest air tends to settle in low areas in this setup, over the higher elevations, the temperature may still drop below freezing.

The frosty chill will feather into the northern and western suburbs of Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Sunday night into early next week.
Frost is likely to stay away from the highly urbanized I-95 cities this time.
AccuWeather.com meteorologists suspected a cold wave would come to pass soon after two tropical systems in the Western Pacific Basin curved away from mainland Asia recently.
They have observed that between one and two weeks after such a path, a substantial push of cold air usually invades the northern U.S., regardless of what computer models suggest.
The phenomenon has to do with the way the tropical cyclones force the jet stream to buckle over the Pacific Ocean then correspondingly cause the same to occur over North America days later.