While the Northeast will experience a true taste of winter this weekend, cool Canadian air will seep all the way south to Texas and the Deep South beginning today.

By Bill Deger, Meteorologist

Sep 30, 2011; 6:21 AM ET

High temperatures some 15 to 20 degrees cooler than Thursday will be felt from the southern Plains to Georgia and the Carolinas today and Friday.

For a part of the country that has routinely risen into the 90s and 100s not just over the past few weeks, but for the balance of the summer, temperatures in the 70s and 80s will feel downright autumn-like.

Friday night, many interior areas will drop into the 50s. On Saturday and Sunday nights, clear skies and light winds will allow the mercury to plunge even farther, well into the 40s over much of the Deep South and even northern Florida, sure to cause many residents to reach for their jackets and sweatshirts.

Higher elevation locations along the southern Appalachians in northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee and the western Carolinas even risk some patchy frost and a few snow flurries.

The cool low temperatures will even challenge some long-standing records.

The record low in Atlanta, Ga., Saturday night is 42 degrees from 1895. The AccuWeather.com forecast calls for the temperature to fall to within just one degree of the 116-year-old record.

For residents of Shreveport, La., which tied a record Thursday for its latest 100-degree day on record, temperatures approaching the 40s will certainly feel different.

Perhaps nowhere will the cooler air be more welcomed than in Texas, where residents endured the hottest summer on record.

After cracking the 100-degree mark for the 71st time this year on Thursday, Dallas will enjoy highs in the lower 80s over the next few days.

Lone Star State residents can look forward to the fact that this cool blast will be the beginning of the end of persistent stretches of 90-degree weather until next year.