Last night was so cold that we didn’t even have frost, lol.
Seems the cold air hasn’t reached us yet though. When it does, my zone 8a (average low of 10 F for the zone) will have the following intense cold:
Sarcasm aside, I’m very happy to have dodged the bullet with this one, sorry for you folks caught up in it, cold is never fun.
Both the short term and long term forecasters thing we are fools along with the media that reports on them.
ztom,
It looks like it has been colder coming in to this years cold snap. Also, the slope is not as steep. Looks like it took 2 days to drop vs. lasts years over night.
Not sure if that makes much of a difference. @Olpea might know.
Before there were computers, if you give me the location of H and L and gradients of pressure…I could do a pretty good forecast.
If any city has a ‘record cold’ reported this week…just go “Google” that city and their all-time record low…and you’ll find out they can sure spin the data!
I much prefer a cold snap in mid Jan than early Feb. I suspect here trees are more locked into dormancy now than then.
Agreed, the only loss I had in my orchards last year (far NE Texas) from single digit lows for a few days was losing my two pomegranates and I replaced with cold tolerant varieties that should be fine down to 0 in dormancy.
My worst hits this year was a late freeze when sap was rising - I will take a jan / feb freeze anytime over april.
Six inches of snow, current temp 12F, forecast tomorrow night 0F. I might have accidentally triggered a space/time warp and now southern Tennessee is situated closer to Canada. More seriously, we had similar temps December 20th to 22nd a year ago. Hopefully won’t lose all my Ponca blackberries this time.
If you pile leaves as high as you can up at their base or even use fencing to hold the leaves up higher it should protect the canes.
I noticed on radar from Huntsville to Cleveland TN the fluffy stuff really came hard.
At least 4+ inches here. But 15 or 20 miles north, only 3.
I think ‘subdood’ mentioned just over an inch along I-64 in north eastern portion of KY.
Around 5 inches here.
Six inches here in southern TN. Chickens and turkeys are not too sure what to do. Fifty miles south had solid ice about 3/4 inch thick.
Got maybe 2in tops, supposed to get another 3in Thu night/Fri morn. It’s 12 now and clear, no wind, so it’ll get close to zero tonight. Roads were mostly dry on the way home, but getting up our snow-packed hilly driveway was a bit dicey. We’re on another two hour delay at the university tomorrow. Hoping we’ll get a day off Friday if the forecast is accurate.
Had 4" by 3 pm Monday…Got another last night. But, it’s fine and compacting (shrinking).
ps.
Our Pol. Incorrect private conversation ended on the 2nd Coming!
6” here to cover up the mud. nice to finally have enough for a ski through the woods. Looks like down to mid single digits by friday. Guess I should finally get the figs covered!
Weather patterns have shifted in the last several years. My dad in AL is now colder than me in VA. Either way it’s still freezing here. Sure could use some of that climate change they keep talking about.
From Davos to the weather channel…I’m surprised all the hot air has let it get this cold!
Minus 4 at the airport in Laurel Co this morning at 7 a.m. That’s about 25 degrees shy of a record here.
Best I can tell the low temps close to our orchard were -10F, -12F,-13F for the days Jan., 14th, 15th, and 16th. These temps are sort of an average from a couple personal online weather stations close to the orchard. One weather station is a little over a mile south of the orchard, one is 1.5 miles east of the orchard.
This is slightly different from the KCI airport readings, which is the official weather station for Kansas City. The official temps at the airport were -12F, -13F, -9F for the three days.
I agree with ztom that the temps dropped more quickly last year. Imo, the biggest problem last year was that the drop occurred in Dec., when there really hadn’t been much cold weather before the big drop on Dec. 22, 2022. I don’t think the trees had much of a chance to get into endodormancy. It was almost 60 degrees 9 days before the big drop last winter (on Dec. 13th, 2022). We had a lot less days of sub freezing weather before the big drop last winter. According to the records, the farm south of the orchard got down to -6.5F, but it was a pretty steep drop (Red line is the temp.)
Here is the cold drop this year (same farm)
However, the low temp was much colder this year, which is bad. Plus there was three days of bud killing temperatures, which is also bad. I’m sure peach trees aren’t happy. Unlike last year, this year we didn’t do any fall pruning, so there is a lot of red wood on the peach trees. How much of it has viable fruit buds remains to be seen.
Olpea,
What low temp is “bud killing”? Our lowest here in Southern Indiana this year was 0F, several days of it. Last year we had a warm December and dropped to -7F overnight X-mas eve. I had 2 peaches on 3 trees…
Wishful thinking, Maybe we get off easy with little thinning? We all hope your farm pulls off a decent crop.
I’m not Olpea, but this old thread: Peach bud hardiness? Clear as mud? indicates that its dependent on how dormant the buds are. It sounds like the cutoff is -5F but if the weather has been cold and they’re dormant you can have lower temps and be just fine. Olpea mentioned getting worried around -10F.
Last year I think the bad problem was spring frosts in my area and in KS. We had a mild March then a few serious freezes through May. This thread: 2023 Peach Evaluations gives a more complete story about temp drop and late freeze. =(
Ive heard -15 F mentioned as a threshold for hardy peach varieties. That comports with my experience. We have -10 essentially every year here, so Id never get peaches if that were the lower limit. I read an interview with Dwight Miller, who was one of the first commercial orchardists in VT to grow peaches other than as a curiosity. He said on average his trees would make a good crop every 3 yrs. Thats been about my experience. For sure it depends on lots of factors, particularly those affecting the relative dormancy of the tree in question.
