Hide Your Plants – Average Dates of the First Freeze in Missouri

Summer isn't completely over, but it is technically meteorological Fall already. That means there will soon be a chill in the air that will eventually put fear in your plants. With that in mind, I have found the average dates of the first freeze in Missouri.

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What better place to go for weather expertise than the National Weather Service? They compiled a ton of data over the last 30 years to figure out the average date of the first freeze in Missouri and other parts of the tri-state area.

Note that there is frost figured into this, but the 2nd and 3rd columns are the ones to pay special attention to when it comes to your plants and when they need to be covered or brought inside.

The takeaway from this is you can expect to see freezing temperatures and even some hard freezes the first week of October. But, in some years, the temperature drops below the freezing mark as early as the 3rd week of September. Chills. Literally.

Why do meteorologists start Fall earlier than the rest of us?

I could probably give the short answer that meteorologists are weird, but there's a more technical explanation by the National Weather Service:

Meteorological observing and forecasting led to the creation of these seasons, and they are more closely tied to our monthly civil calendar than the astronomical seasons are.

Right. Bottom line is meteorologists are always right (or so I'm told). Full disclosure: my wife is a meteorologist so there's that.