By Rich McKay
ATLANTA (Reuters) -An early taste of winter is expected for the eastern half of the U.S. beginning this weekend, as a fast-moving storm system sweeping down from Canada clears a path for frigid temperatures as far south as Florida, forecasters said.
About 155 million people, from northern Great Plains to the deep South, will experience some freezing conditions through Wednesday, the National Weather Service said.
“The big weather story is this major cool down,” said Ashton Robinson Cook, a meteorologist with the service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park Maryland.
The cold snap will bring the first snow of the season to the Great Lakes area, with Detroit, Buffalo and Chicago expected to get a dusting or an inch or two over this weekend, Cook said.
As the cold air pushes south on Monday and Tuesday, Knoxville, Tennessee, and other spots could see a touch of snow on Monday, with temperatures of 26 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3 degrees Celsius) forecast.
By Tuesday, temperatures could match or break record lows in more than a dozen cities in the Southeast, including Savannah, Georgia, at 31 degrees, Mobile, Alabama, at 31 degrees, and Fort Myers, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, at 45 degrees, forecasters said.
Atlanta, which enjoyed highs in the mid-70s on Friday, will experience its first freeze of the season, with temperatures plunging into the mid-20s. Local officials warned residents to wrap exposed household water pipes to prevent bursting.
Forecasters say Florida and other parts of the Southeast could have the coldest early November since 1993.
In sub-tropical Palm Beach, the approaching cold raised concern about a potential hazard virtually unknown to other parts of the country: falling iguanas.
Wildlife experts say temperatures below 50 F can stun the reptiles – an invasive species that thrives in South Florida – causing the cold-blooded creatures to plunge to the ground from their tree-top hangouts.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Frank McGurty and Hugh Lawson)
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