How's your weather?

Free for all about gardening techniques, tips and questions.
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PlainJane
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Re: How's your weather?

#2261

Post: # 85172Unread post PlainJane
Sun Dec 18, 2022 5:43 am

@karstopography looks like I’ll have to cover some things if this forecast holds.
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“Never try to outstubborn a cat.”
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worth1
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Location: 25 miles southeast of Waterloo Texas

Re: How's your weather?

#2262

Post: # 85176Unread post worth1
Sun Dec 18, 2022 7:52 am

Woke up with a stack of blankets on top of me in a house that was a balmy 55F.
Invigorating to say the least.
Hell if everyone did this we could win against climate change in one week.
Worth
25 miles southeast of Waterloo Texas.

You can't argue with a closed mind.
You might as well be arguing with a cat.

Tallylassie
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Re: How's your weather?

#2263

Post: # 85181Unread post Tallylassie
Sun Dec 18, 2022 8:16 am

We are expecting a hard freeze, 28 degrees to 30 degrees, Friday and Saturday night. Peach, nectarine and citrus trees are blooming now. Not good! Yesterday, we moved about ten pots of seedlings into the garage to protect them. I expect the pepper seedlings and plants outdoors from last year to be killed by the freeze. So sad!
Florida temperatures may reach the lows from 1983!

Lemonboy
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Re: How's your weather?

#2264

Post: # 85230Unread post Lemonboy
Sun Dec 18, 2022 10:26 pm

Don't ask. It's cold.

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karstopography
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Re: How's your weather?

#2265

Post: # 85255Unread post karstopography
Mon Dec 19, 2022 12:58 pm

-51°F at Beaver Creek right now in the Yukon/Alaska border area. A relatively balmy 55° here currently with a hard rain pounding on the roof and thunder rattling the windows. One massive lightning bolt just hit nearby and flickered the lights. Two more or less reasonably seasonable weather days and then the bottom falls out Thursday.

Going to have 3 consecutive nights/mornings, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with lows in the teens if Accuweather is correct. Kiss the bulk of the winter garden goodbye. I’ll do what I can, but fighting against mother nature for that amount of time is a losing proposition. I’m thinking of changing my signature line to Zone 8 from zone 9 as that’s been the true story the last couple of winters. Zone 9b isn’t supposed to get this cold, but that’s what the maps say I’m in.
Zone 9b, located in the Columbia bottomlands, annual rainfall 46”

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Tormato
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Re: How's your weather?

#2266

Post: # 85261Unread post Tormato
Mon Dec 19, 2022 3:12 pm

Right now, the weathermen are calling for 56 degrees with heavy wind and rain on Friday. What's left of the white stuff will likely be washed away for Christmas.

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bower
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Location: Newfoundland, Canada

Re: How's your weather?

#2267

Post: # 85273Unread post bower
Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:01 pm

When the storm turned to rain this afternoon I stormed out through the ankle deep slush and swept the several inches of wet snow off the car to go for groceries. Roads were pretty nasty near my home with deep slush but 5 minutes away it was all water. Still raining I can hear the dripping so it has not verged back to snow for now.
Nights will drop below zero this week and we are supposed to see Mr. Sun!!! Hello there! for two days anyway. Since first week of December. We are on track to break the record for least amount of snow in December since 1942 records began. Current record held by 2010. Nobody mentioned the least amount of sunshine, they don't seem to have kept a record of that.
AgCan Zone 5a/USDA zone 4
temperate marine climate
yearly precip 61 inches/1550 mm

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karstopography
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Re: How's your weather?

#2268

Post: # 85274Unread post karstopography
Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:02 pm

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texa ... 982484.php
Once upon a time, Columbian mammoth roamed around here. Weather they might enjoy is currently inbound.
Zone 9b, located in the Columbia bottomlands, annual rainfall 46”

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bower
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Location: Newfoundland, Canada

Re: How's your weather?

#2269

Post: # 85275Unread post bower
Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:04 pm

karstopography wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:02 pm https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texa ... 982484.php
Once upon a time, Columbian mammoth roamed around here. Weather they might enjoy is currently inbound.
Good time to wear those woolies! ;)
Row cover might save your garden, if you have any. Such a shame! :evil:
AgCan Zone 5a/USDA zone 4
temperate marine climate
yearly precip 61 inches/1550 mm

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karstopography
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Re: How's your weather?

#2270

Post: # 85279Unread post karstopography
Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:10 pm

@Bower I do have a goodly amount of freeze cloth. I’m not clear on the difference between row cover and freeze cloth. I have ways to create short tunnels, via bamboo, etc., with said freeze cloth. What exactly is row cover and how much cold protection does it provide?
Zone 9b, located in the Columbia bottomlands, annual rainfall 46”

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karstopography
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Re: How's your weather?

#2271

Post: # 85280Unread post karstopography
Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:22 pm

My thought is to pile a lot of leaves, I have these various oak leaves on hand, around the vegetables and then to put whatever freeze cloth over the vegetables.

The leaves might enhance and insulate the protection of residual ground warmth to maintain the warmth and the freeze cloth might add a protective overhead protection.
Zone 9b, located in the Columbia bottomlands, annual rainfall 46”

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GoDawgs
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Location: Zone 8a, Augusta GA

Re: How's your weather?

#2272

Post: # 85299Unread post GoDawgs
Tue Dec 20, 2022 6:50 am

karstopography wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:10 pm @Bower I do have a goodly amount of freeze cloth. I’m not clear on the difference between row cover and freeze cloth. I have ways to create short tunnels, via bamboo, etc., with said freeze cloth. What exactly is row cover and how much cold protection does it provide?
All this stuff comes in various weights and thus various degrees of protection. Row cover is pretty light depending on what brand you buy. What I have offers 2-4 degrees of frost protection. It's fine for frost protection but won't handle what's coming. I haven't invested in heavier stuff due to the usual lack of need and expense. This is what I have:

https://www.superseeds.com/collections/ ... r-per-foot

Most seed companies sell various weights, usually in the "season extender" section of all the fertilizer/pesticide.garden implements offerings in the back of their catalogs.

I've put old bedsheets over the tunnel supports on a few of the beds and added plastic over the row cover on the cauliflower bed. The sheets are heavier than the row cover but no idea if they'll do any good. We'll see. If the cold kills it all, so be it.

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bower
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Re: How's your weather?

#2273

Post: # 85300Unread post bower
Tue Dec 20, 2022 7:09 am

As GoDawgs said, the frost protection varies. I also believe that sheets and blankets are helpful if you're short of dedicated cloth.

For cold tolerant veggies like brassicas and other greens, the key to survival is whether the ground freezes. They can survive more than you think, if the roots don't get frozen. (Some even survive that too). You might have some damaged leaves but the plant will carry on and make more.

Although the typical row cover only provides a couple of degrees protection, that is better than you might expect, because the ground contains a much larger reservoir of heat which is more slowly released into the enclosed area.

In an extreme situation I do think the leaves might help. They would keep the roots from freezing.
Containers of water is another measure to keep temperatures up, but not good if they actually freeze and break.
If it actually snows a little that's a best case scenario, as that will keep ALL the ground from freezing, and what is a very large reservoir of heat, considering the warm temperatures you've had even in December.

Edited to add, @karstopography WRT building tunnels up over the plants, I wouldn't go higher than necessary to avoid crushing something delicate, just because a larger air space will intuitively take more energy (from ground) to heat. One thing about the row cover nonwoven synthetics, they are very light and most plants wouldn't require a tunnel, it is simply laid right on them and tucked in. Exception where we do make a bit of a tunnel is for squash.
AgCan Zone 5a/USDA zone 4
temperate marine climate
yearly precip 61 inches/1550 mm

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karstopography
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Re: How's your weather?

#2274

Post: # 85306Unread post karstopography
Tue Dec 20, 2022 7:54 am

I’ve got a decent amount of the non woven light weight row cover cloth that helps for a few degrees.I’ve got ways to pin it down in the predicted high winds. I’ve got plenty of strong and sizable bamboo on hand to form tiny tunnels where I might. I’ve already piled leaves up and around some of the vegetables and will gather more. The ground is very moist with 1.5” of rain we got yesterday and that should help. Our ground here has never frozen hard, even in the February 2021 or the big freeze of Christmas 1983 or 1989. It just doesn’t stay cold enough long enough to freeze the soil other than a very shallow surface frosty layer. I’ve been through the mid 20°s degrees with minimal issues to the plants. Mid 20° type of weather is normal zonal cold for around here and might happen every few years. I tend to winter garden with that kind of cold being a given or at least a possibility. There’s still a chance that’s all we get out of this front. Weather.com has the bottom at 21° now and Friday being five degrees above freezing, that’s a better number than before. Accuweather has things being way colder, three nights in the teens, and colder longer. There must be some uncertainty in the models still. Hopefully, the worst of the crop killing cold stays well to the north where they are used to it, plan on it, and expect it in a typical year.
Zone 9b, located in the Columbia bottomlands, annual rainfall 46”

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GoDawgs
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Re: How's your weather?

#2275

Post: # 85310Unread post GoDawgs
Tue Dec 20, 2022 9:31 am

I just checked the forecast again and since yesterday they've dropped the lows a bit...again. Yesterday's forecast vs today's:

Sat 18, now 16
Sun 21, now 18
Mon 22, now 20
Tue 26, now 25

And I rechecked my daily weather data that goes back to 1999 and yes, this will be the coldest Dec 23-25 during that time frame. However the coldest December over all in that time was in 2000 when the average daily low for the month was 28.3F/-2C. And in 2010 the average daily low was 29. That brings to mind what NASA calls the "roughly 11 year" solar cycles. This year is close enough to that to make me wonder since 12 years since 2010 "roughly" fits the cycle.

rxkeith
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Location: keweenaw peninsula

Re: How's your weather?

#2276

Post: # 85313Unread post rxkeith
Tue Dec 20, 2022 10:02 am

we missed the brunt of the last winter storm. john dee described it as it was like a wall was around the keweenaw that
kept the snow away while other areas got hit. our turn is coming. we have had several inches of snow fall yesterday, and today
which is a prelude to a big storm that will be coming into the area, and is forecast to stick around for three days. its hard to say
what the total snowfall will be, but it very well could be a coupla feet by sunday. it will be a very white christmas.
temps are in the teens. winds are gusting. i have a stretch of time off to deal with the snow, but i will be working friday, and the weekend
when the snow could be the heaviest.

ugh


keith

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PNW_D
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Re: How's your weather?

#2277

Post: # 85322Unread post PNW_D
Tue Dec 20, 2022 1:26 pm

this may be some sort of one day record for Vancouver ......
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Zone 8b

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worth1
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Location: 25 miles southeast of Waterloo Texas

Re: How's your weather?

#2278

Post: # 85353Unread post worth1
Wed Dec 21, 2022 4:47 am

Big cold front about to come through here in Texas.
First the wind on Thursday and in the teens by Friday morning.
Not looking forward to being in an unheated building all day Friday.
But I'm not going to freeze for anyone.
Worth
25 miles southeast of Waterloo Texas.

You can't argue with a closed mind.
You might as well be arguing with a cat.

Danny
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Re: How's your weather?

#2279

Post: # 85375Unread post Danny
Wed Dec 21, 2022 2:41 pm

Going down to the low single digits here, add in the wind chill and we will feel like minus 17.

rxkeith
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Re: How's your weather?

#2280

Post: # 85379Unread post rxkeith
Wed Dec 21, 2022 3:20 pm

we are getting the blast of cold air too.
lake effect keeps the temp warmer during the winter, so we don't normally see the minus 20 or 30 weather unless
the big lake freezes over late winter. then it can become bone chilling cold. single digits here. the high might have been 10.
we got about 4 inches of snow yesterday, and another 3 or 4 overnight. big storm coming that could drop 2 to 3 feet of snow by sunday.
high winds will create blizzard conditions. i am not looking forward to being out in that weather. we won't see 20 degrees for awhile.
the wiper fell off the tractor cab while i was blowing snow before day break. one of the holes the set screws are in that hold the wiper on was stripped. the hardware guy was able to make the holes larger to fit new screws. that was the best case scenario.
there were no straight banks on the driveway this morning.


keith

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