HelpfulGardener.com

19°F


... I don’t know what’s going on, but we sure are getting early chill — it’s 19°F this morning ... 32°F and on down since 7:30 or so last night. Definitely mud-freezing weather. And typically ground doesn’t really freeze until end of November-December here, but this weeks consecutive lows in the 20’s (including a 20°F forecast that is sure to drop us down into another upper teens) from Tuesday night to Saturday morning just might make that happen.

This map!

Brr. It is almost 10:00 am and temperature is 48. Low last night was 34. I hate the winter(you'll be seeing me say that a lot....). I think tomorrow will be fairly warm, and Monday has 100% chance of rain followed by another drastic temperature drop with a chance of snow.

TV News said, cold temperatures have broken records in almost every state. 25 degrees here in TN. Does this mean there is no global warming. LOL Last year they claimed worse weather in many many years it broke many records in many states. Michigan where relatives live they had 12 ft of snow up post the house windows they could not see outside for several months. Mark had to climb out a window to shovel snow away from back door so he could go to work. He shoveled snow away from door all winter. We were in Michigan in July 15 to 20 I was surprised 12 ft of snow was melted. Weather man claims 65 degree Sunday.

Well, the coldest morning so far in the fall - 26° min on the thermometer out back. But I heard that it got even colder in Vineland - a little south and east of me - 18°! And a bunch of places in the area were in the teens. Definitely not normal this early in the season.

Temperatures went from a nice 67 to a freezing, extremely windy 46. Yuck. Put on my nice warm robe and stuck my new cookie cake in a cup thingy in my Star Trek mug in the microwave. Came out kinda gummy, I don't think I did it right. Must be my caveman-age microwave.

I don't think you use the word freezing like I do. maybe 'a little chilly' is what you mean?

high in the mid-60's yesterday, and really nice out. it'll be dropping all day today (they claim high of 36, though it's 43 at the moment). ending up ~14F by dawn tomorrow. pretty unseasonably cold for us for november.

TN blizzard schools are closed. 23 deg today 17 tonight.

This morning was a freezing 29. I put two to three layers of clothes on to go see what survived. The cabbage and cauliflower don't look very happy.

Anyone ever watch the movie "The Day After Tomorrow"?

Global warming results in melting of arctic ice. Permafrost recedes. This in turn affects the arctic jet stream shifting it over and it means that the Northeastern U.S. experiences colder winters with polar vortexes and bomb cyclones becoming more common and to have much wetter Springs/Summers. Meanwhile other parts of the country will experience multi year drought.

Climate is cyclical and polar ice has advanced and receded, but usually change is more gradual. Interference by man has accelerated the changes.

The Little Ice Age occurred between 1250 and 1850. There were three interglacial periods with slight warm periods between them. Speculation was that changes in solar radiation, increased volcanism and the cyclical nature of climate were factors. Major events that happened that was related to weather was the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 that took 50 million lives, mostly young and healthy. Other flu pandemics of 1957,1968, 2009 are also linked to El Nina conditions and population changes and distribution during or following periods of war. Donner-Reed party in 1846-1847 that perished when they were snow bound in Sierra Nevada on their way to California.

Extreme volcanism can cause global cooling due to dust particles and release of green house gasses blocking solar light. The effects can last for months or years. Krakatoa, Mt. St. Helena, Tambora, Vesuvius, Yellowstone, and the Long Valley Caldera. The latter two would have world changing effects when they erupt again.

Climate change affects agriculture, fish and animal migration patterns. Warmer weather increases number of planting days, but extremes of storms, floods, and drought can ruin the crops as we have seen this year in the Midwest. Plants are affected by climate change more than animals since they can't just uproot themselves and leave. Warmer temperatures mean that less heat tolerant crops won't do well. Less food for animals and people too, and more food insecurity. Scarcity usually leads to conflict. The warming trend is unlikely to ease up anytime soon. In terms of global climate a few hundred years is but a moment in time. To adapt now, we have to look for alternatives to find ways to conserve clean water, efficient use of irrigation, and selecting for crops more resistant to heat and drought.
9january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-agriculture-and-food-supply_.html
https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news ... hange-spd/

Thankfully my greenhouse doesn't use gas. Believe me, if I could turn into a bird, I'd fly south for the winter. Or, if not a bird, a bear or something else that hibernates.

Having a fall/winter garden here in my area is just too difficult. It can be warm and sunny one day and overnight the temperatures will plummet into the 30's, and 20's. I wanted to turn into an ice cube just by seeing the 29 on my digital thermometer. There is no way I could survive up North.

High of 74 with nasty humidity yesterday and now, at quarter past 10 a.m., it's 42 degrees and not getting much warmer with tonight getting down to 31. Crazy weather.

Guess I better tell my garden goodbye. Here at work and somebody just said it was supposed to get into the TEENS tonight!! That just freaks me out. This morning I had to put on two pairs of sweatpants, a heavy jacket over a light jacket over a sweatshirt over a t-shirt and scarf and gloves just to go out a few feet to see what survived the previous night. If the onion is still in one healthy piece when I get back, I'll pull it up and lay the greens in a sandwich.

I got .67" of rain this morning, plus a snow flurry - first of the year. It's still 35°, but supposed to get much colder tonight. I finally remembered to bring in my rain guage!

17 degrees this morning.

I was visiting my parents at their senior community yesterday with my daughters. They keep the building so warm that the residents are hardly aware of the weather. I wheeled my Dad in his wheelchair to the “sun” porch off the entrance foyer so he could see the snow falling from the windows and he was amazed.


...it went down to 22°F this morning here — why is it colder where you are Gary350?

I need to fix my remote sensors — had to go in the garage to check the temp in the Garage V8 Nursery, and the min/max setting said it went down to 37.7°F last night.

Both front and back thermometers had 25° for mins last night, but the covered raised bed only got to 40°, and was 53° at around 9:30 am, due to the sun. Still, that's the super light Agribon, so I'll have to switch it to the heavy plastic, soon.
I would have done it already, but it's been very windy almost every day - again today, with a wind chill of 16° when I went to Aldi this morning.

21 was the low. Looking at my garden from the backporch door, I really don't think much pulled through. When I got home from work last night, I had to carry a lantern out with me and I pulled the onion. I laid a few of the greens in a sandwhich, and the rest is in the refridgerator. I think I'll put some more in some soup.

pepperhead212 wrote:Both front and back thermometers had 25° for mins last night, but the covered raised bed only got to 40°, and was 53° at around 9:30 am, due to the sun. Still, that's the super light Agribon, so I'll have to switch it to the heavy plastic, soon.
I would have done it already, but it's been very windy almost every day - again today, with a wind chill of 16° when I went to Aldi this morning.

It helps even more to layer the plastic OVER the fleece, Pepperhead. Even if you have to use thinner plastic for light transmission. If I had been able to finish the hoophouse, that’s what ai was going to do — get under there and put down fleece as first layer, then plastic, then the hoophouse. As it was, I didn’t dare take the covers off of them at all. Heh.

Early snow made the news yesterday. Apparently there was snow in parts of Tennessee that came a few weeks early. Hope all of you are staying safe and warm.

It has been raining here mostly in the afternoon and overnight. The days have been sunny with a few clouds. By the afternoon, it gets grey and overcast on most days followed by scattered showers. At 10 a.m. it is 79 degrees, which is pleasant. I am taking a break from weeding in the garden right now. Tonight's low is 66 which is a bit chilly for me so I will need my blanket tonight and a cat or two.

I'd take 66 over 21 ANYTIME!

Flood Watch till 6 p.m. Pacific Time. Thunder and lightning last night with heavy rain. The light show lasted till around 6:30 a.m. this morning. I could see the lightning flashes but no thunder so it was probably out over the ocean beyond Diamond Head.

It was relatively sunny at my mom's house at 8 a.m., but when I passed Waikele ,about 4 miles away, there were palm sheaths littering the road so it must have been windy in the middle of the night. One of my orchids fell off the table, but it did not crack the terra cotta pot so it made a relatively soft landing on the concrete floor.

It is 2 p.m., I just got back from my mom's house (she lives 7 miles away). It was getting dark there, but once I hit Waikele again it was pouring rain. By the time I got back to my house about 10 minutes later and 4 miles uphill, it was raining heavily.

Lightning bolts and thunder very close and my lanai was flooding about 2 ft into the lanai. My lanai is lower than the yard so in heavy rain it cannot drain off the runoff from the roof fast enough so the lanai floods a bit. Once the rain slows a bit, the water will recede on its own.

There is a large dark cloud overhead but it still looks like it is sunny on the Leeward side of the island.

It has been nice and warm here the past few days, and will remain so until Friday. Rain is expected, and then temperatures will drop for a couple of days then slowly accelerate again.

applestar wrote: ...it went down to 22°F this morning here — why is it colder where you are Gary350?

Most of the time jet scream on TV looks like this attached photo. We have friends south of Birmingham Alabama area 250 miles south of us they get colder weather than TN. Birmingham AL area gets a lot more snow than TN Nashville area. Sometimes jet stream is far south and sometimes its not. We often have no snow for 5 years whole Alabama gets more snow than TN. Jet stream comes from Alaska through Montana across the USA down into AL then circles up the east coast. It got down to 40 last night & warmed up to almost 60 today. We have 2" of rain in the forecast for Thursday.

I am curious about Thanksgiving weekend weather but it's Christmas time when we might be travelling.

Here right now, it's very foggy. Visibility has been 1/8 of a mile for hours now, at a nearby airport.

Yesterday was a bright, sunny day. Somehow, that airport recorded a 44°f afternoon high. But! there was frost on the north sides of neighborhood roofs right up until freezing air temperatures were back at 5pm.

Steve

"Another storm that will be highly impactful across the western U.S. reached the Oregon Coast Tuesday evening as a low pressure record setter for the month of November ... The Sierra Nevada mountains are likely to get hammered with blizzard conditions, and heavy snow is also expected towards the east to include the northern Rockies, Wasatch Range, and the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. Winter storm watches and warnings are already in effect for many of these areas with the potential for 1 to 3 feet of snow. Thanksgiving travel in these regions will also be severely affected, ... " NWS, Weather Prediction Center

Many mornings with fog and visibility down to 1/4, even 1/8 mile at nearby airports. That's finished! Temperatures still in the 30's Fahrenheit but Strong Winds with gusts above 35mph and they are supposed to be worse through the day.

There was a little snow squall and a 38 vehicle pile up, yesterday. People were sitting in their cars for 3 hours on I 90.

Steve

We will trade you a tornado for some snow. It was sunny an 65 today, about 3:30 pm it got dark 90 minutes early. Storms with tornadoes will be here in about 1 hour. Record rain fall for the year 60" the storm that is coming is expected to dump minimum of 2" which will break the 60" rain fall record. 57 deg now an raining.

Uh-oh! You be careful, @Gary!

It has been gusty today. Temp this morning was a nice warm 74 but after the rain it is now a horribly freezing 46. I harvested the red romaine lettuce before it got cold.

20°F now but temperatures are going up! High of upper 40’s blushing 50°F for the next week!

...definitely NOT White Christmas or New Years Day..... bummer. But maybe better than that one year when I was leasing a horse with barn chores as part of the lease, and had to transport as many large containers of hot water as I could (I used empty 5 gal water fountain jugs) because the barn’s wellhead froze in the -10°F (windchill -20 or something ridiculous) temperature on New Year’s Eve.... the horses’ water buckets had frozen solid and had to be carried outside, the ice had to be knocked out, then refilled with the transported water. Then I climbed up on the rafters to drop hay for the horses so they would have plenty to keep them warm....

It was about 15 years ago — don’t know if I could do that sort of thing now....



...eta... huh, it just occurred to me that this might mean I will be able to prune some overgrown trees I missed the opportunity earlier. Branches are not supposed to be cut when under 45°F....

Ha, AppleStar, I have hauled water for a horse!

First, how is this for atypical Christmas weather? The previous 2 mornings were the warmest since the 17th of October. Not Christmas weather, not even Thanksgiving weather ... the recent rain added some welcome snow at the very highest elevations and, we can be pleased that it didn't fall on the trick-or-treaters on Halloween. December snow has entirely melted in my yard.

Now that horse . I was in my 20's and had just moved to family property way out in the country. My first construction project, a barn. My first residence, the loft of that barn!

Dad was into trail riding and rodeos, those days. He bought a horse and brought it out. Winter came and my water line hadn't been completed. Water came in the back of my pickup. Winter came harder. I couldn't move the ton of snow for several weeks well enough to clear the road all the way down a hill to my barn/residence/horse home with just the tractor and a scraper blade. The pickup had to be parked up on the road!

Five gallon buckets were strapped to the tractor for transport over about 1/4 mile to the horse and me . I could carry buckets up in the loft and the warmth of a wood fire to keep them from freezing. My 20's, I say ...

Steve

Friday and Saturday we had high wind warnings and some rain. It was only about .25 inches, so it was annoying but not enough to cause any major flooding. The ground has been dry so it can soak all of it up. A few pots were rolling around the yard and the palms shed a few more leaves than normal. The snails are out in force and I have have been snail hunting every morning if I can get up early enough. The night temperatures are about 66 degrees. Right now, it is 70 degrees with an expected high of 77. It is still overcast but the rain and wind have stopped for now. It is a little early for the wind at this time of the year. Usually most of the wind and big surf peaks in January. Surf along the East and North facing shores will be about 5-10 ft. South facing 3 ft. When the surfing competitions are held, the surf can be over 30 ft. Hawaiian wave measuring systems underestimate the face of the wave. A 10 ft wave probably has a 15-20 ft face, or is 5-10 feet over the surfers' head when slightly crouching. Not all waves are rideable, and most people know you enter the food chain when you enter the water especially after a heavy rain.

I won't be having a White Christmas either. Temps this weekend were cold; in the 50's. Tomorrow and after, the week's temps will be in the high 60's and low 70's with cold night temps of 30's, 40's and 50's.

I cannot believe it's almost Christmas, and I'm not even through wrapping. My Mom has started her annual impatience: she texted me and was like, 'can I open my present now?'. 'No, Mom.'

After the thrill of Christmas is over, my next task will be planting the pepper seeds. I better make sure I saved up enough egg cartons.....

It is about 60 degrees F on the beach of Gulf Shores AL. Wind makes it feel colder. It is suppose to be 69 & sunny tomorrow, 70 & sunny Wed. We are here for a week Christmas vacation. Wind makes big waves maybe we get in the water tomorrow.

imafan26 wrote:...you enter the food chain when you enter the water especially after a heavy rain.

"You enter the food chain after a heavy rain"
Hawaii has sharks. There are not that many shark attacks because the sharks are well fed, but they do come close to shore and even birth in the shallow waters of popular beaches. Still, there are deaths attributed to shark attacks every year. Most of the victims were in murky water, near a stream mouth after a rain. Sharks hang out at stream mouths after heavy rain looking to scavenge a free meal. Dead animals caught in flood waters will wash out. Sharks also like to hang around the North shore where baby turtles will be released every year. People should not be in the water then. Surfboards are mistaken for seals which are the sharks' normal prey so more than a few surf boards have been chomped on. Seals and turtles are the sharks staple diet. When the seals and turtles migrate to the beaches, sharks are usually nearby. When certain shore fish are schooling sharks also will come in. And of course sharks are attracted to any blood in the water. It only makes sense to pay attention to the conditions that will attract sharks and share the ocean some other day.

Back to the weather. Christmas day was wild windy and very wet. My lanai partially flooded about 3 ft in during the heaviest down pour since the water was coming off the roof faster than it could drain away. I even had to close my windows, the rain was being driven past the screen. My screen needs to be cleaned! Today, it is bright and sunny, the winds are still out there but a lot calmer. I still have to pick up the palm leaves that fell and pots that rolled away. I large cottony cumulus and some cumulonimbus clouds are hanging out in the clear blue sky. It is 77 degrees with 82% humidity.

I just swiffered the floor that got dusty and some mud from yesterday's wind and rain that came through the windows and I am doing my laundry now. My cat's blanket stinks when the humidity is 100%. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and are looking forward to the new year. My garden survived the rain for the most part. Some of the garden catalogs I did not ask for have already arrived and it is a good time to look through them and make my list for next year. I spent my day with family all four generations and a lot of trash. My sister helped herself to my garbage can and filled most of it up for me. I don't have any of my trash in the can yet and I don't get another pick up until New Year's eve. I did treat the cats to a meal of fried pompano I bought at the Asian Market. How cats who hate to be wet, really have an appetite for fish, I will never understand. They don't know its Christmas, but they like the fish anyway.

Of all things to happen. On Christmas Eve I was spending most of the day doing last minute wrapping and noticed my throat feeling sore, and it got worse later on. After letting my family know I was sick, we postponed our Christmas even after I told em to go ahead without me but people don't do what I tell em. Anyway, I've spend the past couple of days sacked out in front of my television coughing and taking a decongestant. Today I went out and Miracle-Gro-ed the cabbage, carrots and lettuce.

applestar wrote:

imafan26 wrote:...you enter the food chain when you enter the water especially after a heavy rain.

We only go in water ankle deep. Weather turned sunny an nice in the 70s every day & a bit hot standing directly in the sun.

Up to 60° today, and a nice day. I wish I had more to do out there, so I could have spent more time out there!

It is warm here too. 80 degrees and dry. Humidity is 69%. The forecast is for occasional showers but mostly sunny conditions through the new year. The nights are in the 60's so I am keeping my socks on most nights when I sleep. I finally got out to survey the aftermath of the wind. A few pots got knocked over, the egg plant trellis fell over but the plant did not break. A staked Jamaican oregano had to be re-staked. The plumeria broke another couple of branches. One of the broken branches supporting ascocenda Princess Mikasa broke and the vanda was down, and also in bud. I propped it up against the tree again. the pot was still hanging up, I may have to tie it to the branch until it latches on. The roots are still wrapped around the broken branch.

I pulled got into the herb garden and pulled out weeds to fill a 32 gallon bag. Just in time for mochi pounding, kado matsu and lunch.