Precipitation was below average and temperatures were above average across Illinois during September.  Jim Angel is the state climatologist with the Illinois State Water Survey.  He says precipitation for September was 1.87 inches, 1.39 inches below average.  Angel says it was the 14^th driest September on record and the third month in a row with below-average precipitation.  The statewide temperature for September was 68.8 degrees, about 3 degree above average.  Angel says the beginning of October was “very summer like.”  He says temperatures were 9 degrees above average.  But he says a Sunday cold front “finally brought temperatures more in line with October.”

It won’t be long before Illinois residents wake up to something that signals the end of the growing season for everyone from farmers to landscapers to gardeners: frost.  Angel says the first frost of the season in northern Illinois will likely arrive by Thursday.  Central Illinois typically sees its first frost between October 11^th and October 20^th.  Frost arrives in the southern end of the state between October 21^st and 31^st.  Angel says that the actual day the frost arrives varies so those residents who grow particularly tender plants should start covering them up now.