Champlain Valley Frost Risk Tonight, Right On Schedule

Frost advisory in Vermont's Champlain Valley tonight. If we do
get the first frost of the season tonight, it'll come right
about on schedule. First frost is usually about now.

Right about now is when the first frost of the autumn hits much of Vermont's Champlain Valley, which is the state's banana belt anyway.

This area usually gets frost a little later than the rest of the state.

Sure enough, the first frost advisory of the season is up for this part of the state overnight tonight and early Saturday morning.

As is usually the case, the frost will be hit and miss, as temperatures here will be marginal for a frost or freeze.

If you live right along the immediate shore of Lake Champlain, I think you're safe. Anywhere else, all bets are off.

Remember, the temperature doesn't actually have to drop to 32 degrees to get a frost. We usually measure the temperature from thermometers placed about five feet above the ground. On clear, calm nights, like the one we're expecting tonight, the temperature can be, say, 35 degrees five feet off the ground, but a frosty 32 degrees down by your feet, where your garden is.

Which means this evening you should  cover up or take in any plants that you want to keep coaxing along. That's especially true this year, because if your flowers and veggies and stuff survive tonight, they'll keep going for quite awhile. A long period of warmer than normal frost-free temperatures will start Saturday afternoon.

Away from the Champlain Valley, a fair chunk of Vermont has already had a frost, which is also typical.

North-central Vermont, including Montpelier and Morrisville, is under a more strident freeze warning tonight, as temperatures there will be colder. Many places will go below 32 degrees.

There's no frost or freeze warnings in even colder areas of the region. The National Weather Service in South Burlington, as they do every year in October, have given up on issuing frost and freeze advisories for the colder sections of the region, like the Northeast Kingdom and the Adirondacks of New York.

Those areas have already had so many frost and freezes that pretty much everything in the garden is dead there. No point on issuing any advisories to people who can't use them.

With the frosts of fall now under way, the next thing to look forward to (or not) is snow. I still don't see any coming to Vermont anytime soon. If I had to guess based on unreliable long range forecasts, I'd say the first chance of any Vermont snowflakes, at least in the mountains, will come around October 15.