Big weather change begins today

As the cold front moves through the region, temperatures will begin a march downward to the 20s by early next week, and there’s a slight chance of some snow overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, said Storm Center 7 Chief Meteorologist Jamie Simpson.

“If there is going to be a change this drastic in this part of the country, this is the time of year it will happen,” Simpson said. “This is the time of year we still have some very warm air over parts of the country and some very cool or chilly air, as well.”

Temperatures stayed well above average this week with area highs including 73, 76 and 77. Those temperatures are expected to fall below freezing by the end of the weekend, although that’s not unprecedented even for this fall.

“(The coming temperatures) are not record lows,” said Myron Padgett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Wilmington. “We’ve already had freezing temperatures this season, so it’s nothing that’s extreme.”

Some of the year’s most extreme weather came this summer, when heat and lack of rain pushed 98 percent of Ohio into some form of drought in mid-July. This week, 27 percent of the state remained in some form of drought, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report.

Rain has helped. September rainfall totaled 5.27 inches, or nearly twice the average of 2.84 inches for the month. October rainfall has already passed its average of 2.26 inches, reaching 2.51 inches.

The September and October total of 7.78 inches of precipitation nearly matches the four-month total for May, June, July and August, when 8.12 inches of rain fell. That four-month sum was just 51 percent of the average for those months.

The rainfall came too late to help some crops, but others improved, said Erica Pitchford Hawkins, spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Agriculture. In particular, soybean and hay crops rebounded in September and October, while corn crops damaged by the drought were mostly beyond repair.

That improvement in hay harvests is particularly important because farmers were in danger of using too much of their “winter stock” to feed their livestock this summer and fall.

“We needed that rain back in early June and July,” she said, “but we just didn’t get anything.”

The above-average temperatures this week also allowed gardeners and landscapers to get in some final work before the colder temperatures and freezing. John Scott, general manager of Knollwood Garden Center and Landscaping in Beavercreek, said the fall is an important time for planting flowers meant to bloom in the spring, such as tulips and daffodils.

Because plant life has already experienced some freezing temperatures this year, the dip beginning today will not hurt them, Scott said.

“We’ve had a really nice fall to put the garden back together in a good position, even with the weather coming up,” he said.

Still, to some, the warm week has made the cold temperatures of late fall and winter even less desirable.

“During this part of the year,” Simpson said, “we can go from one to the other very quickly.”