FROST ALERT: If You Value Deck Plants, Here's When to Cover Them

Depending on wind speeds, frost could settle on vegetation in southeast Michigan this weekend. (Photo via Flickr/PermaCultured)

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If you want to squeeze a bit more life out of your deck plants and garden, plan on covering them or bringing them indoors Saturday as the coldest air of the season settles over southeast Michigan.

Steve Freitag, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in White Lake, said air temperatures in the northern suburbs will be 32 degrees or colder Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

Whether the frost settles on the ground is a question, though, depending on wind speeds, currently forecast for around 9 to 14 mph. Freitag said he’s not “totally convinced” frost will show up on the ground.

Temperatures Saturday are expected to be in the upper 40s Saturday when the University of Michigan takes on Michigan State University at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor in a big intrastate rivalry game. A northwest wind reaching 20 mph is expected to put a bite in the air.

Partly cloudy skies are forecast.

“The big factor is going to be cloud cover, and wehther we keep the sunshine through the day,” Freitag said. “That’s going to be a factor in how people feel.”

Some areas of northern Michigan could see brief snow showers — more precisely, graupel, or snow pellets — but that won’t be a problem in southeast Michigan.

Temperatures are expected to moderate by the beginning of the work week, with highs in the 50s Monday and 60s on Tuesday and Wednesdays. Nighttime lows are expected to be in the mid- to upper 40s.

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