Leslie Ferrari, of Adams Township, walks her pit bull Comet at Adams Township Community Park on Monday. "He's a rescue," Ferrari said of the dog that was at the Butler County Humane Society for nearly two years before she adopted him. Joseph Ressler/Butler Eagle

Temperatures are projected to drop for the rest of the week following a particularly warm weekend that saw highs soaring into the 80-degree range.

“We have a cold front coming in tonight and tomorrow, which will lower our temperature for Butler County,” National Weather Service Pittsburgh meteorologist Myranda Fullerton said on Monday afternoon. “Highs tomorrow will be in the mid 50s, and then tomorrow night will get into the low-to-mid-30s.”

Rain and some isolated thunderstorms are projected for Monday night.

Daytime high temperatures Wednesday will be even colder in the low 40s, she said, and overnight Wednesday into Thursday could see temperatures as low as the mid 20-degree range.

Leslie Ferrari, of Adams Township, walks her pit bull Comet at Adams Township Community Park on Monday. "He's a rescue," Ferrari said of the dog that was at the Butler County Humane Society for nearly two years before she adopted him. Joseph Ressler/Butler Eagle

“There could be some snow showers, mainly across northern Butler County, on Wednesday during the day,” Fullerton said. “In terms of accumulation, we’re not anticipating any, but it will be cold enough to support potential for some snow showers.”

Fullerton said the fluctuation in temperature isn’t too unusual for this time of year, and that the average high and low temperatures for the Pittsburgh region this time of year are 66 degrees and 44 degrees respectively.

“Spring is definitely a season of fluctuation and changes,” she said. “It’s also why we tend to see severe weather a lot this time of the year — you have these clashes of warm and cold temperature. It is common.”

Justin Brackenrich, an educator at the Penn State Extension office in Butler County, said the cold temperatures aren’t likely to have an impact on crops that have been planted.

“A lot of the things that would be out now would be things like wheat and barley and rye, but they would have been fall-planted crops,” he explained. “They would have gone in in September or October of last year. They’re still in a very early stage of their vegetative cycle in the spring, so these cold temperatures don’t really affect them long-term.”

Cold temperatures in April aren’t a huge concern in general, he added.

“Typically this time of year, we wouldn’t worry too much about these things,” he said. “If we get these colder weathers in May, then it becomes more of a concern, but for right now in April we aren’t too worried about it.”

This year, the planting schedule of spring-planted crops like alfalfa, grass and oats is a little bit behind, but not because of cold temperatures, he said.

“At other times of the year or other years previous to this, we maybe would be further ahead in what our planting season would look like. This year we are behind from my perspective, but that’s been because of the rains, not because of the cold part of it,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of our spring stuff in — the rain has really been more of a factor for us than the cold has.”

While “windows are starting to close” for the planting of spring crops, he said, the agriculture community isn’t in crisis just yet.

“These spring-planted things are something that has to happen sooner rather than later, but we do have time to get them in yet,” Brackenrich said. “We aren’t hitting the panic button yet.”