Autumn arrives at 10:29pm - perfect weather ahead

The growing season is not quite done for 2014. Despite the cold weather and frost this past week, I still have spectacular flowers growing on L'Ile Perrot.

The first day of Autumn 2014 is here after a rather warm and humid weekend in the St. Lawrence Valley. Temperatures were in the mid 20's with showers and even an isolated thunderstorm over the weekend. Not much rain fell in Montreal with 5.8mm here on L'Ile Perrot and officially 6.2mm at Trudeau Airport. It has been windy overnight with gusts over 50km/h across the island of Montreal. Much colder air has settled into southern Quebec this morning with the temperature down to 9C (48F). Expect a cloudy and windy day in Montreal with the temperature only gaining a degree or two. That is the bad news, the good news is we are in for a spectacular week of weather. Once the skies clear this evening, we will have nothing but sunshine right into next weekend. Along with the sun will be a period of very warm weather for late September. Expect temperatures to warm through the high teens into the mid 20's by next weekend a full 8-10 degrees above normal. Highs may even approach 27C (80F) in some locations next Saturday. After the drizzle this morning, no precipitation is forecast through the end of the week.

As mentioned the Fall Equinox occurs at 10:29pm EDT today. The Latin term equinox means equal night with the idea being that there is equally 12 hours of daylight and darkness today. From this point on the days become increasingly short as we head towards the winter solstice. In fact the sunrise today in Montreal is at 6:43am and sets at 6:52pm, so daylight is still winning for now with 12:08 minutes of daylight.