Freeze warning for tomorrow. "Lows expected to be very close to freezing. Wind Chill values will be in the 20s through 8 AM. Winds will be from the west to northwest at 15 to 20 with 25 to 30 mph gusts."

A couple of hours ago Pickles and I put out the covers over the brassicas again and then she remembered that some of the potatoes are up about 3". Thank goodness she remembered the potatoes! So we dumped leaves over them, laid old folded bed sheets over each of the two rows and weighed them down with bricks. By then there was a strong breeze already so the sheets will keep the dumped leaves from blowing away.

Three days of rough weather in the area missed us. The town just to our north got hammered by straight line winds. The town to the east of them got smoked by large hail, so did several others. All we got was about an inch of needed rain and one close lightning strike that knocked out the power for a few seconds.

My son the online college student slash lineman for the power company has been working pretty much nonstop getting everything back in order. Many Circuits blown, the major lines between two cities out of service, utility poles split in half. He said they need another week to get it all back. Meanwhile, his wife and two month old son have seen him for three hours since Friday Afternoon.

@GoDawgs I hope you (and everyone, for that matter), make it through this cold snap OK. Freezing is forecast for this area, too, but it's sort of normal, for this time in this area, so all I had to do was re-cover that fig tree - anything else out there now is cold weather crop, that won't be bothered. So much for the first day of spring!

FWIW brassicas and lettuce and onions have weathered air temperatures down to 28F in my greenhouse, even when it didn't bounce back much in the daytime, if at all. Anything like bok choy will likely bolt as soon as the temperatures go up, but others will be okay.
@JRinPA you could add a few water bottles and they'd probably be fine.
Then again it depends whether it's more trouble to move water bottles than it is to move your trays.
If the earth is well above freezing, and they're sitting on the earth, they are not at much risk of freezing in the tray.

I left the onions out there with a 5 gallon bucket of water. The leafy stuff I brought in. It sure feels cold out there though. I should probably go get them after all...4 trays is 4 trips, brrr. They can stay out tomorrow night. I'm going to get them.
okay all inside... be dumb to lose any due to laziness at this point. I'm thinking I should go ahead and get a couple remote temp sensors and see how cold it gets in these plastic house things. A couple years ago I did get peppers damaged. I thought they would be okay with a heat lamp. That was probably in late April or May.

Greenhouse is covered and heater set up. My 1 tomato plant that's already in the ground I covered with insulation board and a tablecloth. It's currently 54. Feels colder than that out there.

snow ended up around 4 or 5 inches. i blew the driveway just in case we got more than predicted.
light snow today was all. we might be in the clear for a few days snow wise, but temps aren't getting
out of the twenties for awhile. not going to feel very spring like tomorrow. still breezy, but not 45 mph
gusts any longer.
just looked at the forecast. more snow over the next three days, not a ton. winds are going back up in the 25 to 45
mph range again. that puts a chilling in ya.

keith

Yeah..it was flurrying sideways here this evening. Just feels colder to feel it in mid March than it does in December or January. I guess tshirt and shorts don't help. I'm not seeing any snow in the forecast here, possible rain wed night.

Question, does anyone here actually pay for windy.com paid version? If so, please share what you think of it. This past month, they finally added a radar forecast.

Pretty sure with paid it is unlimited favorites, so I'm thinking it would be neat to put in everyone's location as a favorite and be able to instantly see how everyones' weather is going. I would not look at mark thompson's, too depressing. I looked a couple years back, that forecast didn't vary but a degree or two off perfect for the whole week.

We had our "Sheila's Brush" yesterday - that's the stormy weather that we traditionally get within a day or two of St. Patricks - apparently the remnants of your Paddy's Day storm @rxkeith . Bit of snow blowing around but not enough to shovel.
Our forecast for the next week is all highs above zero, and that's what I want to see. Some rain on thursday to beat the snowbanks down, which we really need as well.
@JRinPA you can use any thermometer to measure the difference between inside your greenhouse and outside. Just wait a few minutes and move it. That will give you the difference # of degrees you can expect between the sheltered and the exposed. Even a bit of row cover is supposed to provide 2-3 degrees C.
As regards tolerating cold extremes I would rank most tolerant to least: onions/leeks/alliums; brassicas ; lettuce; peppers; tomatoes; beans/squash.

34 was my low. I had my one in-ground tomato plant covered with insulation board. Greenhouse plants look fine. It was so cold I didn't want to get out of bed. Bed was warm. Room was cold. Outside even colder. Have I mentioned yet that I hate the winter?

43° was the low here at the airport three miles to the northeast. Up to 52° currently off my back porch. I think all our live oaks here add a couple degrees of insulation on still mornings. Supposed to get to 65° today.

It snowed yesterday

It never did freeze here this morning. Low 35. We uncovered the plants this afternoon as tomorrow's low will be a breezy 38. Maybe rain on the weekend.

Jacket weather in the morning.
Nothing drastic.

After it was supposed to only get to 45° today, I think it got to 49 or 50 degrees, though it was extremely windy again. Tomorrow it is forecast to get to 60°, but Thursday back down to 46°, and a low overnight down to 28°. Eventually, rain returns, Saturday and Sunday.

23F tonight on the forecast, similar tomorrow night. Going to get the stuff in again...I think they may stay in the basement for a couple days. I left them out last night and they look fine but it only got down to probably 34f.

Got to 62° today, but very windy! About 20+mph sustained, and up to 40 mph gusts, with this again tomorrow. And still forecasting 45° tomorrow.

Got to 67° today, but without much sun. Another shot at damaging hail and lightning tomorrow. No gardener wants hail. Weekend looks nice, mid 70°s with sun.

Just spotted this outlook for a nice spring in the US! Without major flooding or drought.
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-weather-m ... ought.html

Weatherman tells me that sea ice is 44% less than normal, ie the water is too warm to freeze this far south. Not sure how that will affect the overall spring weather as icebergs drift down from further north, but it's a promising sign for a warm spring by local standards.