Posted by: @courtenay

That means it'll start getting dark by about 4 pm, which I find exciting and atmospheric ... but most people who've grown up with it find it terribly dreary and won't stop moaning about it.

I love this! "Exciting and atmospheric", indeed. Here will be similar, with the night starting to settle in around 5 when we change from Daylight Savings Time to Standard time in a couple of weeks. The mornings will lighten for a bit, while the afternoons will be a fair bit shorter. More time for stargazing!

I must admit I find it a challenge to comprehend how many people moan about shorter days, when I live for these all summer. But each to his/her own. In summer, my body feels like it is dying; in Autumn and Winter, I came alive in a vibrant way!

This week, the temperatures are in mid-high teens Celsius (high 50s to mid 60s F), while today is only 11C / 51.8F, which is my kinda style. And the nighttimes, oooh, the nights are right around freezing, with risks of frost, until they warm up a bit on the weekend to 7C / mid 40sF. Tonight, in fact, it will be below freezing. At the coldest point there will be a slight wind chill of -5C / 23F. This will be great walking weather early tomorrow morning (6 - 7 am), under the night sky and into the early dawn.  

Sure hoping to view comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, possibly tonight, although clouds could dominate, but there is a higher chance tomorrow evening, when the skies should be clearer. 

The trees continue to turn, although our backyard maples have not even started yet. They turn a brilliant yellow when peaked; one almost has to put on sunglasses to look at them on a bright day! It is like they are shining with an inner floodlight. But the colours all around our pastoral area—greens, yellows, reds, oranges, rusts—are gorgeous. We have not nearly reached our peak yet. Sometimes the peak is at our Canadian Thanksgiving (this past weekend), but other years not until later October. This year will be the latter.  

We had a terrific rainstorm blow through here this afternoon, just a half hour ago. I love when the skies are cloudy, because everything vegetation-related looks extra vibrant and lush, compared to a blaze-on sunny day when all appears almost too bright and harsh. In fact, out front maples are so orange now (gorgeous!) that it is like an orange floodlight is shining in our windows, even though they are way down at the foot of our driveway.

I think we have reached the peak of Autumn colours now, 'though our back maples, while beginning to turn, are not at their peak quite yet. When they reach it, there will be a glory of yellow all across our backyard, before the farmer's fields begins. Have I said before how much I love Autumn?!  😉 😀

This rain has brought in cooler temps (yay!), as we have been above normal for the past few days, and I have been itching for crisp Autumn weather, which is now here. Going down to near freezing tonight! Should be a great walk early tomorrow morning!

CAn someone tell me what Fall is? We're hovering in the high 80s and low 90s F and in a major drought. I think we're rapidly approaching two months with no rain. 

@starkat, Didn't you say you are from the South of USA? It looks like you are in a period of drought, and so far, there's been two hurricanes creating havoc as well. It seems like this "fall" is a relatively bad time for hurricanes which are called cyclones in the South Pacific.

I hope everything turns out for you, when our native vegetation sheds bark but is not deciduous, which is why mainly Canada & USA would call Autumn, "fall". 

Down here, the weather is getting warmer, but as soon as we change winter sheets, put away jumpers & extra blankets, we find ourselves reaching for them again, due to rainy weather, bringing cool changes. We can have three or four seasons in a week if not a day. It was only 9C at 6.00 am the morning at Campbelltown earlier this week, and when it gets cloudy of an afternoon, it keeps us on our toes, to take the laundry off our clothes lines, before it gets rained on. 

@waggawerewolf27 I'm on the Texas Gulf Coast. We got hit by Beryl early on in the season and then had a couple of brushes by disturbances. It looks like we may end up with a 90F/32C thanksgiving this year or somewhere there about. Normally, we're running 70-85F or 21-30C at this time of year so we're a bit on the warm and dry side. I think we're running around 6-8 weeks since we had any measurable rainfall. So wildfire chances are extremely high and it also means we won't get much of a wildflower season next spring. Our wildflowers require October rainfall for germination.

Today's weather is crazy! It is brown outside. The wind is blowing soooo hard and it's dry, with record breaking heat. 
Tomorrow night we're supposed to get some thunderstorms, I don't know if they're supposed to be severe or not, but I'm looking forward to think .

That record heat has reached this far north, @fantasia. We tied the record (75F/24C) yesterday, but broke the old record, set in 1922, of 78F today when we reached 80F/27C. (The average high right now is 51F/10C).

Originally there was talk of thunderstorms reaching this far north, but now we just expect a cold rain and crashing temperatures the next couple days, with a chance of the season's first snow on Halloween.

It's 24 C here in S Carolina at 6pm.  We reached 26.

About what we reached today, in NSW, which is actually Hallowe'en. Or Samhain in Scottish & Irish Gaelic. 

Watch those Halloween lollies put out for children. A bag of liquorice flavoured jellied black cat lollies just broke one of my crowns so a trip to the dentist has now become urgent, not merely due.  

Happy Halloween, anyway. 

Ouch, wagga! I hope you're able to get in and that taken care of right away.

'Tis Halloween in North America now, though it looks a lot more like Christmas here! Less than 48 hours after August-like high temperatures, the snow is falling fast and accumulating outside. 2-4 inches (50-100mm) is expected by the time it finishes later today.

Interestingly, we've only had snow on Halloween itself 8 times in the last 145 years - but most of them have been in the lifetimes of oldies like me, including the Halloween blizzard of 1991 (which always seems to come up this time of year).

Samhain is the cross-quarter day marking the halfway point between the fall equinox and winter solstice, but the actual halfway point is closer to November 5, Bonfire Night in the UK.

Posted by: @stargazer

Samhain is the cross-quarter day marking the halfway point between the fall equinox and winter solstice, but the actual halfway point is closer to November 5, Bonfire Night in the UK.

The 5th of November also happens to be the wedding anniversary of a couple of very dear friends of mine, here in England — their 36th this year. I gather they chose the date because the chapel they wanted happened to be available that day and it meant they'd be certain to remember their anniversary. Plus of course they get free fireworks on their special day every year!  

As for the weather, the forecast for the 5th is dry and partly cloudy, at least here in the North West, which hopefully means people's bonfires and fireworks won't have to be cancelled due to rain — of which we've had a lot, lately. It's nowhere near as cold as it can be for the end of October, but it's not exactly warm either, and today was very grey and persistently mizzling. It would be nice to have some fine and bright weather to make the most of what's left of autumn, but I don't know when or if that will come.

A couple weeks after the last post, our weather has finally decided that it is November. Yesterday we received over an inch (25mm) of much-needed rain (unusual so late in the season; often it is snow by now), but now the northwest winds are howling and snow is in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow (sparse accumulations here, but up to 6 inches/152mm in the Red River valley northwest of here.

Some of the trees, including a large maple in our yard, are hesitant to give up their leaves even though winter is on our doorstep.

Meanwhile in northern England, after weeks of only vaguely cool and sometimes rainy weather, it's suddenly dropped below freezing... we had snow last night. (Monday night into Tuesday morning, that is.) Only a little, and it melted away during the day, but it was enough to make everything look wintry, which was lovely. I love seeing the bare trees with snow clinging to their branches like white blossoms... I just love snow.   (For those who get far more of it every year than they'd like, please bear in mind that I grew up in Australia and never saw snow in my life until I moved to the UK when I was nearly 30 — and as we don't get snow here every year, that makes it more exciting when it happens. But I wouldn't want it to be always winter and never Christmas, mind you. )