2024 What's the Weather like Where You Are?

[Gary350]

TN is still in a drought only because many places are 8 to 12 inches below average rain fall. Hurricane rain washed away, roads, bridges, houses, buildings, shopping centers, but they are still in a drought. That makes no sense you couldn't start a grass fire with 100 gallons of gas but we are still considered to be in a drought. My garden is staying wet we keep getting 1 min and 5 min small rain sprinkles 1 or 2 times a day, dark cloudy sky and 70° garden soil stays wet, carrot seeds need several more days of this.

[digitS']

It was foggy this morning for 3rd day in a row. Is this a normal natural phenomenon when daytime high is in the 80’s and overnight low is in low 50’s?

Probably so. For those locations where humidity can stay above 35% during the afternoon hours in mid-80's, a drop in temperature of 30⁰ must pull lots of moisture from the landscape. Of course, that blanket of fog protects that landscape from losing much more heat into the atmosphere.

An overnight drop of 30 or more degrees is about average for where I live but where is that moisture to flood the atmosphere? Oh, there are lakes and rivers (at very low stream flows during Summer and early Fall). We officially had .24 inch of August rain and a "T" at halfway through September — without a single "storm" over these 6 weeks dropping a tenth of an inch of rain.

Weeks of Summer drought are common but the time span has lingered into months. We have had a cooldown and our afternoons are staying in the 70's. The first frost will soon be running unusually late but that's helping with my tomatoes/melons and with the 2nd plantings of cucumbers/green beans. The late sowing of snow peas are also gaining a chance to develop pods so tendrils have to stay off the menu .

Steve
47f here this morning (8C), supposed to be 82f today (28C)

[imafan26]

It is 77 degrees now at 7:30 p.m. I watered late today. Humidity is 67%. There are some showers imbedded in the trade wind flow, but it is mainly falling on the windward side. I have been getting some overnight showers, but they have been brief. Less than a tenth of an inch. The Lehua was not happy, but most of the other plants were o.k. I don't have too many pot bound plants now that I have repotted most of the worse ones. The Lehua aerial roots were pulled up so it is much more sensitive to drought stress. It is trying to put out more aerials. I may have to trim the canopy back even though that could be dangerous because lehua can be killed by fungal diseases.

I fertilized a few of the containers. The seedlings, two towers, citrus, peppers and some of the orchids. I will have to finish the rest on another day. The new Miracle grow feeder does not have the reach of the old one or the water pressure, so it is tedious to fertilize with it. It looks like I lost some of the Thai basil, but I have more seedlings to transplant out.

Today, I bought an English thyme, Grosso lavender, and and another lavender that looks likke Goodwin. It was not labeled. There were a few different varieties at the garden center that I normally don't see. I like lavender, I don't grow munstead or the other zone 8 lavenders, but I have better luck with the lavindins that are crossed with intermedia and can tolerate a warmer zone I also have lavender multifida, l. dentata, Goodwin Creek, and Provence. I grow them mainly in large containers because they cannot handle a lot of rain.

Today was green day and I filled both my cans yesterday but the cans were not picked up. I will have to drag them back in the morning. They don't make up missed recycling days. The city sanitation department has been missing pickups in a lot of neighborhoods. Some places have waited 4 extra days for regular trash pickup. The news said that it is not a manpower shortage, but a shortage of working trucks. Half their fleet is down and they can't get parts or new trucks and this has been a problem for years. My next green day will be in two weeks. Luckily, this is not a peak time for me to need to trim anything. I was going to start pruning the plumeria, but it can wait. If I have anything that needs to go to the composting facility, I would have to take it on Sunday. At least they haven't missed a regular trash pickup by more than a day. So missing a green waste pick up is not that bad.

[applestar]

@imafan it’s kind of funny to me to hear you say you need WARMER climate lavender than the Zone 8 … I can’t grow those here unless I’m willing to bring them inside for the winter (spider mites can be a bit issue).

I can grow the winter hardy English munstead types, and I want to get some white flowered variety to addd to my regular purple patch.

@digit’S — Thanks for confirming/supporting my theory. I think even during drought, the creek that my residential development is built over is contributing to the humidity.

It flows about 5 houses? over and into a concrete culvert … and emerges at the other end of the development maybe 1/2 mile away into a community green area/park with a pond.

There is a paved walking path around it with stretching/exercise equipments installed around it and is a popular route for the residents who want to exercise — humans and dogs.

The pond is visited by traveling ducks and geese, herons, and has turtles and — I’m sure fish. It is connected with another short culvert to the continuation of the creek, and a several years ago, beavers moved into our pond and even built a lodge… It was really fun for me and my children to watch them, but in the process they starting cutting down the ornamental trees that had been planted around the pond including some very nice cherry trees. I heard they had been relocated by the local park authority.

(I’m beginning to wonder if that that might be where the raccoons that visit/raid my garden after heavy rains might be coming from…? Is there any chance they would travel through the culvert all the way? Maybe they normally hide in there during the day, and then get flooded out?)

So even in drought, there is some moisture hovering near the surface around here.

I’m fact, our house insurance used to have a very expensive flood insurance attached to it that we actually didn’t need because our house is on higher ground but was included as part of the lower lying flood zone….

[digitS']

Raccoons visited my yard about 2 weeks ago. I did my best to traumatize them with my dandelion digger .

35⁰f (2⁰C) at the nearest Weather Underground volunteer – about 3/4 mile away. By 5:30AM, there was frost on top of the car in the driveway. Really, the driveway is the most exposed part of the yard. The coldest moments of the day lately is about 7AM so I sprang into action.

Ran sprinklers in 2 parts of the garden for 20 minutes. These weren't the most efficient sprinklers but I wanted more water quickly. Turned them off and gave them 5 minutes on again about 30 minutes later. Maybe unnecessary, maybe washed a little light frost off. Tender veggie annuals seem fine. Flowers were on their own since I wanted all the water pressure elsewhere. Dahlias look okay.

Forecast looks good for tomorrow AM. Bright and sunny, warming quickly.

digitS'

[applestar]

I want to say “already?!” but I’m thinking you’ve had frost even earlier in Sept and even late August.

Glad you saved/helped your garden resist this first onslaught. Good luck!

[Gary350]

92° here today. Today 9/22/2024 claims to be equinox which means 12 hours of sun and 12 hours of dark but the truth is 9/26/2024 will have 12 hours & 1 minute of sun and 11 hours 59 mins of dark the next day 9/27/2024 will have 11 hours 59 minutes of sun and 12 hours 1 minute of dark. This year 2024 is leap year with 366 days not 365 days like the other 3 years.

[imafan26]

76 degrees with almost no wind 3 mph. It rained briefly but at the moment it has stopped. I have less perlite in my potting mixes so some things can go a couple of days without watering. Some things still need to be watered daily. It does make the watering time shorter if I don't have to water everything.

[applestar]

This is not really weather, but file it under sub-tab for “environment” I guess….

Yesterday, I went out in the garden early, hoping to get some stuff done in the nice cooler morning temps….

BUT my neighbor was churning out laundry and they use some heavily fragranced laundry products. PLUS the neighbor’s lawn service were happily blasting away with their gas-powered tools and mowers. So I was constantly dealing with allergy/chemical sensitivity symptoms like stabbing headache and runny nose, heavy weight on my shoulders and nearly asthmatic breathing difficulties.

By the time I gave up and went inside, I was so dizzy and brainfogged that I cancelled my rest of the day plans to run errands. But when I tried to just collect my thoughts and relax, have a cup of tea and a cookie… yesterday’s delivery smelled so strongly of perfume/fragrance that my condition was dialed up to migraines.

Try picturing the described scenes above with some colored swirls and smoke for the various chemicals in the air. WHY are these things NOT considered pollution!!?

[Gary350]

We are finally getting everyday slow sprinkle rain forecast is 5" of rain in 7 days. Carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, should do better with less 90° Sun & dry desert soil. Cooler weather is on the way.

[imafan26]

Gary. You keep referring to your desert soil, but you can grow cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, and carrots in 92 degrees. I can't cant even do that in 84 degrees. Which means your night temperatures must go down to the 50's. I have a 10 degree max daily variation in temperature. Now my nightly lows are about 74 degrees. The days are shorter, the sun comes up after 6 a.m. and right now I have started broccoli, kale, and chard, but they need to mature November-April or they will be tough, bitter, and bolt. The heat tolerant lettuce does grow year round, but it is so bitter in summer, I only use it for seed.

You get a lot more rain than I do. Even though, l don't really get my garden flooded. My garden is raised so it doesn't flood and if I do have ponding it only lasts about a day. The mud can last a couple of weeks. Most of the time, unless there is a storm, it rains mostly at night or intermittently with totals less than a tenth of an inch. Which isn't enough for my containers, but is enough for the plants that live on rain. I have a few of those. Ti, bromeliads, bay leaf and ginger on the north side of my house really don't get watered regularly, but the soil there rarely dries out because it is in the shade most of the time and it is red clay so it can hold on to water a very long time. When it does rain, it gets the runoff from the roof.

Applestar, I feel for you. There are a lot of allergens in a tropical climate. Luckily, I don't have many pollen allergies, but a lot of people here do. I just have to be careful with papaya sap which will give me contact dermatitis. I do experience the noise pollution though, because of all the blowers used by the neighbors yard services, which all seem to come on the same days. The neighbors that do their own yards actually don't have blowers. When I do weed whack my front yard, it doesn't make that much noise because I have a cordless weed whacker and I sweep up the sidewalk and road with a broom. The weed whacker is heavy though, because of the 40 amp battery. it is why I can only do about 30 minutes of weed whacking at a time before I need a break. In an HOA, laundry lines have to be hidden. My neighbor got cited for their laundry lines being visible from the street. So, they put up a swing gate to block it.

[pepperhead212]

Well, it finally came! I was going to go outside, around 2:30 - when it's usually totally shady in the back - and it was very dark, so I looked out, and it was raining - HARD! At 3:00 it had rained .15", but was letting up a lot, but at least something came! This was the most I've gotten this month - total was well under a half inch, so far, which is why that ground was so hard. Maybe I'll get a little more from the edge of Helene. I hope everyone here in the south is spared the brunt of it!

[digitS']

A windstorm yesterday afternoon had gusts to 60mph at a local airport. Big cloud of dust and then, a few sprinkles.

Several trees went down and neighborhoods lost power. There were several fires that resulted but I haven't seen anything yet about more than local damage. AppleStar, you might have had trouble with all that dust but, somehow, our air quality returned to "good" this morning. I think that it may have been because the Pacific Coast received A Lot of Rain even if, we just had the wind.

I want to say “already?!” but I’m thinking you’ve had frost even earlier in Sept and even late August.

Glad you saved/helped your garden resist this first onslaught. Good luck!

Strangely, after our first frost near-miss, we had 2 afternoons with temperatures in the mid-80's. The winds arrived to blow 85⁰f (30⁰C) air away. The Weather Service tells us that we have had the warmest minimum temperatures so far for September ever! Much cooler temperatures forecast with mornings nearing freezing but not quite yet.

Steve

[Gary350]

We got 12" of rain over night. I-24 is under water and closed in 3 locations. Where I-24 meets I-840 is under water and closed that is 1 mile from our house. I-40 about 60 miles west of Nashville TN is under water. Fall Creek Falls State Park and Smoky Mountain National park are closes streams have become rivers flooding the roads. Eye of the hurricane is now east of Knoxville where, TN, GA, NC, meet and moving north at 30 mph. We are expected to get another 12" of rain today. I need to keep an eye on the stream near us I have seen water rise 20 ft in 6 hours and not be a problem for us. I did GPS measurements once if the stream rises 40 ft it will flood us. TN has 100s of hills and valleys roads are under water is 100s of locations. All schools are closed. TV is warning people that electric car windows and electric door locks are a death trap carry a, hammer, axe, hatch, anything that will break out a car window.

Update 8:45 am I-40 near Cookeville TN is now under water and closed. We have relatives that live there they can not get to work local roads are under water also.

[applestar]

Hope your home is not affected badly. I’m glad you reported in because it looked pretty worrisome for your area on the weather maps.

Sending encouraging thoughts to all who are in the path… I believe we’re expecting whatever is left to come through tomorrow here.

[Gary350]

Hope your home is not affected badly. I’m glad you reported in because it looked pretty worrisome for your area on the weather maps.

Sending encouraging thoughts to all who are in the path… I believe we’re expecting whatever is left to come through tomorrow here.

Rain has slowed down to a slow sprinkle. Radar shows eye of the storm in St Louis MO. Not likely we will get the other 12" of rain that was predicted. TVA was on TV at 12 noon, lakes are reservoirs are 30' below normal because of our summer drought. TVA will not release any water from the dams until water level is back to normal. I went over to look at Overall Creek and water is not over the bridge.????? I don't understand that I was expecting 20 ft of water over the bridge. TVA said, much of this rain water will never reach the lakes and reservoirs because every thing is do dry from 3 months of no rain dry soil will soak up the rain. That explains why my garden had 6" of water in it then 12 hours later soil was not muddy. Radar shows the outer ring of the hurricane in Washington DC, OH, IN. IL. & MO. Rain has stopped, rain gauge says 6" of rain.

[Gary350]

TV radar shows eye of hurricane is parked north of Nashville TN on the KY TN boarder. Radar shows rain east to the ocean and north past WDC & MI. west past Chicago. Yesterday we had slow drizzle rain all day barely enough to make a person wet after 45 minutes outside, it must have rained harder last night, road, yard, driveway, have pools of water and rain gauge is now 8¾" of total rain. The dam in south TN near Dayton TN broke TV is showing lots of flood damage. Not much storm or flood damage in our town, we think maybe Union strike has made people panic grocery stores are so packed with people it is hard to find a place to park in the parking lot and many items are sold out. Lots of flood damage video on TV.

[imafan26]

It is 75 degrees at 11:30 p.m. Much calmer winds at 3 mph with a chance of passing showers. Nothing like what you are getting on the mainland with Hurricane Helene. There is no respite either since there is a storm that is likely to develop and strengthen in the gulf in about 5 days.

[Gary350]

49°f this morning first frost is only 3 weeks away.

[applestar]

UNBELIEVABLE!

We have FROST ADVISORY for Thursday night until Friday morning.

I tell ya. I am NOT ready. Gonna be busy in the garden once the sun comes up. And some of my containers will have to be emergency evacuated inside somewhere.

I can drag some into the Patio Hoophouse IF I can straighten that up a bit.

[pepperhead212]

Not quite that bad here, but it did finally reach the 40s here last night - 48° - and forecast for 44° tonight, but no frost in the foreseeable future. The low humidity we've been having is a plus for this - the 36° dewpoint yesterday would have taken a much lower temp to get the frost. Today, in the low 60s, then back in the 70s for 3 days, before cooler again.

[Gary350]

48° this morning dew is so wet it looks like it rained during the night, rain gauge shows no rain. Sun set looked like fire in the sky and Northern Lights are interesting. I don't recall ever seeing northing lights before. TV claims northern lights can be seen in most every location in the USA for 2 nights.

[pepperhead212]

Only got down to 47° last night, and supposed to get to 70° today, about avg, and then 76 and 78°, but by Tuesday, not getting out of the 50s. Roller coaster ride! There is 20% and 10% chance of rain, Sunday and Monday, which means I probably won't get any.

[Gary350]

Yesterday morning was 37°f with very small amount of spotty frost. This morning was 34° with less frost than yesterday. TV said this is a record early frost. There has been 3 wrecks on I-24 near our house in the past 6 hours people on Facebook claim TN people don't know how to drive in frost. That is too funny.

[applestar]

I spent a couple of days of maniacal efforts to cover and protect everything from possible frost. Today I didn’t have to go outside because it only got to high of 60°F.

But TOMORROW, I have to go out and UNcover some things because daytime high temps are going up 70-72-75-79 by Monday!

The “frost and possible freeze” covered stuff will get way too hot and either cook or go and bolt in the case of cool weather crops that are meant to survive down to mid-20’s under full protection.


…Even though the temps are going back up, I’m glad the Great Fall Migration has mostly been taken care of (a few peppers that might come in, and the ginger will need to get dug up….). Now I can turn my attention to getting the new COVID jab — I didn’t want to get it done and possibly be out of commission for a couple of days when temperatures might have bottomed out to critical levels.

My Mom’s LTC is conducting their COVID vaccination clinic for the residents today and my Mom’s got hers.

[applestar]

Huh. I don’t know if I misread the forecasts or what, but it went down to 36°F last night-this morning.

[pepperhead212]

It only got down to 44° here this morning, but 41° yesterday morning - coldest here this fall, but still no frost. The very low humidity, plus the continued wind overnight, is probably why the frost has held off here. Only got up to 62° yesterday, a few degrees below average, but today 72° is the forecast, and every day higher, for a while. Yet the forecast low for tonight is lower than last night! Weird weather...

Oh yeah...still no rain in the forecast.

[imafan26]

It is 78 degrees at 6 p.m. It is thickly overcast, but not a drop of rain in sight. I will have to water. I watered yesterday, but I will have to water early in the morning or some of my plants will start to droop. Winds are light 9 mph. So, it feels hotter. Overnight low around 70 degrees.

I don't get the wild temperature swings the way that you do, so I don't have to worry about frost. It has been relatively dry with a few overnight showers but not every day.

October is pretty much the peak month for hurricanes. We had some stacked storms that brought some rain, some flooding and more beach erosion. The storms have been coming in stronger, clustered together and breaking up closer to the islands. A storm 400 miles away still brings us some impacts. Even remnants bring us rain, but it is usually rain we need. Hawaii is alsp in drought on every island. There was a fire in the gulch last Monday. Thankfully, it was not a large one and it was put out in a few hours.

Milton and Helene caused so much damage, it will take years to recover.

[Gary350]

We have had no rain sense Sept 29, I like dry desert gardening it is almost zero maintenance with few weeds. I water only the rows where plants are. My hose sprayer shoots water 35 ft that makes watering only garden plants much easier. No rain in the forecast for another week and more 80 temperatures coming.

[imafan26]

It is 75 degrees at 8:40 p.m. It is overcast but no rain. Winds are supposed to pick up a little. It is around 9 mph now. So, not much. Sunrise is 6:28 a.m sunset around 6:03 p.m. Days ae getting shorter.

[digitS']

Late last week, the Weather Service forecast suggested that we would have 1/4 of an inch of rain over about 48 hours, clear skies for awhile, then another 1/4 of an inch over the weekend hours. Encouraging!

Sunday was quite pleasant with temperatures above 70⁰f (21⁰C). Frost, we have had – repeatedly over recent weeks. But, some pleasantly sunny days. Monday, the rain returned, briefly.

More than a third. Less than a half. Total for the 4 days.

The Weather Service issued a statement on drought conditions a few days ago. pdf LINK The focus is this inland NW area but maps also cover all of the US. Severe drought continues here. The longer term precipitation map gives an encouraging picture but, here I am, hoping again for snow to make up the deficit.

Steve

[imafan26]

It is 80 degrees at 4:42 p.m. No wind. There are dark clouds overhead, but with a 20% chance of rain. Convection clouds may or may not rain and if it does it is usually brief. it is just very muggy now without the wind. I watered the garden today anyway.

[applestar]

Haha we talk about the moon here right? — go check out today’s Google Doodle

https://doodles.google/doodle/rise-of-t ... .com&hl=ja

[imafan26]

It is currently 82 degrees Humidity 61%. It has only hinted at rain. The clouds get dark but not much happens. But that is about to change. There are a cluster of showers off the Big Island that will make its way down the island chain. The start of it will probably arrive sometime tomorrow afternoon and the weather will remain unstable for a couple of days at least. We do need the rain. However, it may mess up the house getting painted.

[Gary350]

After 27 days of no rain today we had 4 rains about 2 hours apart each rain lasted about 5 minutes. Rain gauge says .1" of total rain.

[imafan26]

It is 75 degrees. Winds are 3 mph and the rain has arrived. It is currently raining, but not heavily. There is a flash flood warning (and my phone alerts keeps going off) until 6 p.m. tomorrow. The heaviest rain is not expected until tonight and tomorrow. It had been raining up to 1.5-2 inches an hour in town for the last couple of hours. The rain cell is moving more towards the central plain where I live. It has been very dry here so the soil will absorb a lot before it starts to puddle. This is a small cell, there are several cells in the rain bands so rain can be intermittent and of varying intensity. I guess I don't have to water the yard today. The rain is affecting mainly the east, northeast and central parts of the islands so most of the leeward sides of the islands won't see much rain.

[applestar]

Yellow Rumped Warbler and a Junco were at the birdbath just now.

In this area, Juncos along with the Yellow-rumped Warblers and White Throated Sparrows arrive for the winter just as or after the Robins and Grackles depart.

So even though today is supposed to get up in the 80’s like yesterday, these birds have declared that the season has turned.

…It’s also actually RAINING. I don’t know how many days/weeks it’s been. It’s actually no more than very slow drizzle, but this is very very welcome.

[pepperhead212]

It rained here this morning, too; though not enough to register on the rain gauge, it was damp out, and there were drops on my car - first time in over a month. And the humidity was 72%, and I can't remember the last time it was out of the 30s. The temperature didn't drop below 66° overnight, but it's not supposed to get as warm as the record 82° yesterday, but still 78° - well above average - before it cools off to low 60s the next two days (still above average), before going up again.

[Gary350]

My rain gauge shows 1/2" of rain yesterday evening, there was no trick or treat happen in the rain.

[digitS']

The airport not far away had .31” of rain total for the 3 months of July, August and September. During the final 2 days of October, the 30th and 31st – there was .37 inch of rain bringing October’s 1 month total to .90”.

Not counting yesterday & today .... officially, we have had .90 inches in November, already. And, it rained yesterday and today !

Annually, our average is about 20" of precipitation. So, despite continuing "severe drought" designation, we are catching up. Maaybbee soil moisture now will be around for the start of the 2025 growing season. A lot to hope for but we have had good snowfall totals in recent Winters.

Meanwhile, coastal Pacific Northwest is beyond soaked. I think they will be happy to share now with those of us a few hundred miles inland.

Steve