There's the difference between being on the E side of an ocean and the W side of an ocean. I'm off to the Costa Blanca in Spain at the weekend, which at 38 deg N is about the same latitude as the northern border of NC, and a frost there is out of the question at this time of year, even up in the hills. By the coast, the temperature hasn't really fallen below 20C (68F) at night there yet.

Here, well inland in southern England at around 52 deg N we haven't had anything near a frost yet either, though this is far less assured than in Spain. Indeed there's still no sign on one arriving, so I reckon we'll get through the month frost-free. I've left my ripening chillis and grapes on the plants so far. Since the last few days have been around 16C, and barely any lower at night, they have been continuing to ripen. Of course we can have a frost in October in S England, and this year October is probably going to rate as unusually warm for the month when we see the final statistics. About 4 years ago we had a fair snowfall in October, the only time I've seen it in my life.