And at least for me it is soooo wrong… It says my zone 4A has become 5A, and yet this is what I see on the ground:
That may have been a particular chilly day in a particular spot on the road but still, zone 5A this ain’t.
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I don’t know your 30-year average annual minimum, but keep in mind that hardiness zones are based on averages, not absolutes. Somewhere can be zone 5a even if it occasionally experiences temperatures in the zone 4 or even zone 3 range, as long as that happens infrequently enough that the average annual minimum is in the 5a range.
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exactly this, it confuses me why people get mad about the changes. like, are you mad about how they measure temperature or are they mad about how averages work?
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It’s worth noting that I’m not necessarily saying Don is wrong here, it’s quite possible that the lack of available 30-year weather station data in that part of Alaska means that the USDA relied more on their computer model to guess how cold it has gotten on average over the last 30 years, and there are likely pockets of colder microclimates that they missed.
Seattle moved to 9a and the weather station data is comprehensive here, which fully supports that move. Nevertheless, our low this winter in my yard was 14.7°F, which is “in the 8a range.” But next year we might have a winter low of 28°F, and the average will likely stay above 20°F for the foreseeable future.
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.I went up to 6B. My out door in ground Hardy Chicago figs have lived and kept above ground growth most years or with significant damage a few years.
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I’m tongue-in-cheek raging against the new zone map. Also the old one for that matter. I’m well aware of the limitations of the USDA standards. I plant trees, they are not impressed by the averages. If there is 1 chance in 20 years that the average jumps 2 zones; those trees are likely to end up dead.
Plus I’m in a valley and mountainous area, with even a glacier in it; the same zip code is mostly zone 4 with a few spots hitting zone 2.
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the new map moved me from z3b to 4b. just 300yrds down the hill on the river used to be 2b now 3b. this winters temps has been equal to z6 winter. lowest we saw was -12f. my in ground Chicago hardy fig wasnt protected at all and i scratch tested all the branches and all survived with little snow cover. -34 in march?. havent seen that in 15 yrs here.
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Weather has been crazy the last few years to be honest. This last Thursday Colorado received a record snow, last year we saw a -15 which we had not seen since the early to mid 2000s. 2021 I believe had our 3rd largest snow. In 2021-2022 we had our longest period of no snow with not getting snow until around January.
My zone map failed to change where I am as far as I am aware and this winter we had a -10,-3 and -1 day 3 days in a row, last winter we had a -15,-10,-8 3 days in a row so I am not changing my planting needs any time soon unless I move. It has been colder here the last few seasons than we have seen for years.
We definitely broke the warming trend here. We were not far off from historical 800 plus hours here. {32-45}
Remember, if it’s Government, they have an agenda.
All I’m going to say.
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Oh, that was early February. It just happened to be the lowest I have ever seen around here. Winters are milder but we still see -25f a few times during a given winter. If a tree is prone to die at -25f the rest of the winter if of little consequence.
Several coastal villages up north are being relocated because the sea ice that used to protect the coast from winter storms is gone. The ocean is reclaiming a lot of land.
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I can say everything and everyone has an agenda. The corporations have a agenda to grow and consume other companies becoming as close to a monopoly as possible, worker bees like myself have a agenda to prosper with land and money/resources to support said land and resources, the government has a agenda to take taxes and govern, a deer has a agenda to eat and survive, a plant as a agenda to spread it’s seed miles and miles. Need I go on? Simply put every thing living has an agenda, every concept has a agenda and every non living object has a purpose to serve.
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What would the agenda be in a change that reflects the reality on the ground? I think calling everything an agenda is as harmful as ignoring that they exist.
Here in Alaska, several coastal villages are being moved inland because the coastal ice shelf that protected the shores since time immemorial is gone. The ocean has already swallowed a number of them. It also doesn’t take a meteorologist to notice that winters are getting much warmer.
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If you have a Government job you have to come out with something new every so often to justify your job to others. I use to work for the Government before I retired.
I’ve seen it over and over. And by the way, last winter was our coldest in 20 years. Killed a lot of things they said was “safe”.
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Unfortunately that’s one side effect of warming in the Arctic: the circumpolar jet stream becomes destabilized and there’s an increased chance of “outbreaks” of extreme cold weather. The flip side of those Arctic outbreaks is usually an influx of extremely warm air into the Arctic on the other side of the low, so that when somewhere like the Southeast U.S. has record breaking cold, you often see record breaking warmth inside the Arctic circle at that same time.
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December 2023 was the 4th warmest since records began in 1895 for us. My peppers are still alive and growing.
A single data point doesn’t mean anything.
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Or a single data point means everything. The GIS data is missing most of those single data points over time and making complete guesses about how to fill in what’s missing. That happens with the temperature maps and especially the precipitation maps. And faulty decisions are made. But as a best guess, they are better than nothing. “Disclaimer: This is an educated guess based on data, software and methods that may contain holes or assumptions. Your mileage may vary. We are not at fault for damages that users may incur from use of said product. Proceed with caution.”
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I mean depending where you live in a precipitation map you can guess what it will be. My area is drought, drought and more drought. Every time around January-March they talk about how we are in a drought. You may as well just say we are in a forever drought here in CO because we share our water with so many states and we get so little water. For the time in November to May here for weather you can guess snow for at least once a week. How cold we don’t know but we can guess snow and drought.
Eventually I want to get a full weather station here. But it will be a while.
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