The GEM (Canadian) weather model is less pessimistic than GFS about the lowest temperatures forecast for next week at Vancouver, Canada; it shows a drop to only a couple of degrees Celsius below freezing. I hope that it is right, but we’ll find out which forecast is more accurate soon enough.
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GFS has been going back and forth between something like that and the extreme cold. Latest one is cold again, the sounding for West Seattle shows five consecutive days (nights of 11th to 15th) with lows in low to mid teens (15°F, 13°F, 14°F, 13°F, 14°F). But just two runs back the lowest was 33°F. So I’m just hoping (please please) that the mild runs are correct, along with the GEM. Though the latest GEM does show that cold air mass getting close, just not quite breaking through to us. That looks like a preposterous temperature gradient:
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Yeah over in Montana you have a 40 degree difference across the rockies
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It would be nice if the forecasts could show confidence bounds or some way to indicate how volatile or uncertain a given forecast is.
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The forecasts do show confidence bounds, which get very large the farther out you go. Here is a site that shows both GFS and GEM forecasts. You can change the forecast location.
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That Fraser Valley outflow is really making itself known this morning! Very cold for those of you near the border zone this morning, and likely to be a bit colder tomorrow morning, too. I hope everyone’s heat stays on, and that your trees all come through ok!
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Low of 7.9F on Guemes Island. On par with last year’s low - waaa.
Feijoa with Christmas lights, fitted reemay, and poly cover 20F.
Loquats with just lights, loose reemay, and some poly cover 13F… already showing blackened leaves.
Most concerned with 10’ tall nectarines which, due to warm weather, showed bud swell. Under high poly cover for PLC and some lights 11F. Will see if buds right next to lights fare better than others.
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I brought in the kumquats and the Tree Collards. Hopefully everything is OK. Longer than most cold spells here.
John S
PDX OR
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Snow accumulating even though it’s 32.5F. Have to periodically whack snow off tall poly coverings. Have had EMT structures bend and twist under weight of wet snow!
The freezing rain changed to just cold rain and so now everything is melted
I noticed some minor flooding in parts of my yard that never otherwise flood, earlier this morning, and realized it was the ground still being frozen! But looks like all those spots have thawed enough to let the water drain through now.
We’ve had snow and ice for days. I went skiing for the first 3 days, and many trees across the metro are down. Many lost power and electricity. Several deaths and many are freezing. It’s hard to get food. We’re iced in for the 5th day in a row and counting. No sign of let up.
John S
PDX OR
First real snowfall of the year. I was surprised to wake up to about a foot of snow. Not very cold out though. Currently about 3° above freezing. It may snow some more tonight, but lots of rain forecast for the remainder of the week. I hope it melts quickly so I can get back to my yard work projects. Lots of digging up stool beds and transplanting to do, so I hope the white stuff is gone quickly so I can get back at it.
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Hello, I’m new here! I’m in the middle of Washington (Ephrata), so my climate is very different than most here. It’s been interesting reading this thread, I didn’t realize apricots were so hard to grow west of the Cascades. I have 2 seedlings that grew from pits of a very old local abandoned tree that I’ve been picking from for 30 years. The area where it is has been getting more and more developed, so it’s only a matter of time before it’s removed. I also have 2 seedlings from my neighbor’s trees that popped up last year. When his house was sold the year before, the new owners chopped down about a dozen apricot trees, most full of ripe fruit. I found a spot behind my garage with about 20 seedlings, I pulled all out but one and put them in a pot on my patio. I’m not expecting them to survive, but if they do, I’ll give them away in the spring. Another came up next to my patio, I relocated it to the front yard where it’s doing very well.
I have several other fruit trees, berries, etc, but everything is so young, so it seems like I don’t have anything, but when I think about, there’s a lot going on my little yard.
I saved some pits from fruit I bought from a local orchard. Some didn’t come up, some got lost along the way, but 2 varieties did very well, and they were the ones I was most excited about because I loved the fruit. They are crimson royale pluot, and spice zee nectaplum. I have one sprouted flavor grenade pluot, but it’s having issues emerging, so it might not survive. The nectaplums look amazing. One has red leaves like the original, the others have green leaves. I’ll take some pictures in a few days when they’re bigger.
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Hi Sam. Welcome to the group. I am in southern Oregon. I am envious that apricots seem to grow like weeds in your climate! I have planted 6. 4 have died, 2 left. If they go, I will probably give up on trying to grow apricots.
Fyi-when growing fruit trees from seed, it is unlikely that the fruit from the seedling trees would be anything like the original fruit. I would think this would be even more true with interspecific crosses like pluots. Might be good, or not. But it doesn’t hurt to try.
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Oh, I know, I’m just having fun. I also started some seeds from some apples, and I know those are never very much like the parent. My yard was so bare when I moved in. Just weedy grass and some daylillies, so even just some trees to bring in the birds are welcome.
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I think for stone fruit, even if they aren’t the same as the parent they will probably have a pretty good chance of being good quality fruit, since probably both parents are. The big problem with apple seedlings is the likelihood that the pollenizer was a crabapple with bad fruit quality. You could always have bad luck, of course, but I think generally the odds are better.
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That’s what I figure, a seed from a nectaplum should make something nectarine-like, even if different, still should be good to eat. Apple tree can be a bird perch if it doesn’t make good apples. I’ve been working to get wildlife into my yard. I didn’t see a bee for the first year, and birds were few. Sunflowers greatly helped with both.
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Or graft it!