Although the morning low was 33 degrees last Thursday morning, by late evening the temperature was 27 degrees, making that day not only our first official frost of the season but also our first hard freeze of autumn as well.
A hard freeze by definition is a temperature of 28 degrees or lower. Our last day with a temperature at or below 32 degrees last spring was May 10. That made the official growing season this year 152 days long, which is 19 days longer than average.
This was our sixth straight autumn with our first frost holding off until October. Although the first 32-degree morning came nearly three weeks later than average, our first hard freeze was very near the average of Oct. 4.
Last year the persistent cloud cover associated with the abundant rainfall helped hold off our first hard freeze until Oct. 27, one of the latest on record.
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