Just for my own curiosity, I looked up the official winter lows for KC (according to a local weather station) and these are the low temps for the year, starting with 2001
-6F 2001
-4F 2002
-9F 2003
-4F 2004
-5F 2005
+4F 2006
-3F 2007
-4F 2008
-6F 2009
-5F 2010
-12F 2011
+5F 2012
-2F 2013
-11F 2014
-3F 2015
-9F 2016
-6F 2017
Temperatures in my locale vary a little because I’m a little south of KC but they are pretty close. 2018 already has a low of -9F (on New Years morning).
@Olpea → Thanks for sharing. I suspect a chart of lows for my area in NE Ohio would look very similar. It is encouraging to see those numbers and know that you have success growing peaches. My trees are still only a few years old, but I’ve had some success after a few bad winters. I’m a little worried about all the young grafted trees I have in containers in my unheated garage. Usually it doesn’t get below freezing for very long in there, but this year is different. I have a bucket of water I’ve been monitoring and it has finally frozen completely. The trees are apricots, peaches and euro plums on K1, prunus americana and M2624.
Ztom,
We’ve only had a complete crop loss of peaches once since the year 2000 (somebody want to knock on some wood). That was in 2007 when the Easter freeze killed almost all fruit crops in the Midwest and parts of the South. It was an early spring that year, and everything had pretty much bloomed out with a bitter cold spell blanketed much of the nation (got down to 18F here). There have been some thin peach crops, but that was the only time in the last couple decades when no one around here had any peaches.
Out here (US SW, in the mountains) it is less the minimum temps than the damage a strong sun will do to a tree. Heating the bark up during the day and then a quick drop back down to 10F or lower once the sun goes down. That’s why I paint my fruit tree trunks with white. Have had numerous trees loose branches and outright die from the effects of the sun during cold weather.
You folks getting this storm, followed by a blast of cold might want to pay attention to how sunny it is (unless of course you’ve got enough snow on the ground to protect the trunks).
With this gigantic dump of white stuff the rabbits will be looking at the trunks of my trees, I just know it. Right now I am snowed in and only one door opens inward. We have at least 4’ drifts outside of all doors. I’ll have to deal with it tomorrow.
It was 80°F here today. Yesh.
Picture and recipe please!!
A guy named Larry Rice shared this poem on social media. It speaks volumes lol! Fortunately our location is the better portion of the state in terms of weather. We have not been below -9F all year to my knowlege. Seldom do we see -20F here even on bad years but it does happen. 
It is currently 16 degrees and feels like 12. With only a few exceptions this is about as cold as it gets at my location. Hoping the extra chill hours helps the flowering of some of my apples. Liberty, Williams Pride, Arkansas Black, and few antique varieties appeared to need more chill last year.
Mid 20’s for a few days starting Sunday…time to break out the shorts and t-shirts
coldest morning for me at -13.8F. For how little snow on the ground (many areas are bare) the frost depth has to be very deep right now.
Was “only” 8 this morn, single digit lows for the next couple nights, then back up to “normal” temps next week. Yay! We and the pets will really appreciate that. Thankfully no plumbing or car issues.
Still keeping the long johns on, tho. Good thing I got a new pair for Xmas, the old ones were getting a bit ripe… Or, is that TMI?
will send pic from my phone
My husband just got out of our front door. All of the snow is now covered in an inch of ice not good.
The coldest temp Yahoo shows so far this winter for my five-year-old rural hobby orchard was -19 F. on New Year’s Eve. This will be a fairly good test of what is hardy enough, although it can get down to -30 or lower some extreme winters. There are a few inches of snow on the ground. Items in question would be my new Illinois Everbearing Mulberry, Sweetheart Blueberries, Siberian C peach (already killed top off a previous winter, but has resprouted), Carpathian walnuts, several chestnuts, a Chinese apricot, and protected PAFs. I think most of the other blueberries, honeyberries, apples, blackberries, raspberries, bush cherries, currants, gooseberries, nut pines, filberts, and butternuts should be fine. The hardware cloth I had around my surviving scrawny pecan tree tilted in the autumn and the rodents got under and girdled it, so I don’t give that one much hope. It sounds like a warm spell coming next week.
U
Homemade meringue, small scoop of vanilla ice cream, small scoop of raspberry sorbet; both placed in the meringue nest. Cover with whipped cream, drizzle raspberry coulis, top with a few fresh raspberries. That should do it!
4f here. got nearly 2ft of snow w/ 35mph wind over night! my truck was a 7ft. drift! took over a hr. to open the drive with the tractor! going s for the winter is sounding better al the time!
12z GFS has …mid 50Fs !!! around Jan 19th… something to watch, although i doubt we get that warm.\
The same run has Omaha making a run at 70F… lol.
Out of curiosity, do you get off work in Maine for 2 ft of snow? Or does everyone expect it to be business as usual?
