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Dec 2013 California Freeze Watch


Mauna Kea Cloudforest

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Now that the cold front has past, we have a frost advisory in effect here in socal, but a wind advisory as well, so hopefully the wind will win out over the frost. 49f this morning but tomorrow will be the first clear day after the storm so...

Matt Bradford

"Manambe Lavaka"

Spring Valley, CA (8.5 miles inland from San Diego Bay)

10B on the hill (635 ft. elevation)

9B in the canyon (520 ft. elevation)

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It's 9:30 PM and for three hours the temperature has been 37F. Absolutely no fluctuation other than a tenth of a degree up or down and that's with nearly no wind detection either. At 6:30 PM I was sure it was going to be much colder tonight than the previous night but now I'm not so sure. There must be some air mixing up above and I hope it keeps it up. We'll see.

Jim in Los Altos, CA  SF Bay Area 37.34N- 122.13W- 190' above sea level

zone 10a/9b

sunset zone 16

300+ palms, 90+ species in the ground

Las Palmas Design

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Las Palmas Design & Associates

Elegant Homes and Gardens

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Jim got any houses for sale in the neighborhood? I'm ready to move to a warmer zone. lol

I like Mountain View, Palo Alto and San Mateo is okay too. Are some of those areas warmer or colder than Los Altos?

Edited by enigma99
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Jim got any houses for sale in the neighborhood? I'm ready to move to a warmer zone. lol

I like Mountain View, Palo Alto and San Mateo is okay too. Are some of those areas warmer or colder than Los Altos?

Jim has a magical spot, I looked at Wunderground map, mid to upper 20's everwhere near palo alto, mountain view and los Altos. But his area is warm.

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Axel, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, parts of Cupertino, and Santa Clara, are experiencing temperatures right in the ballpark with mine. Mountain View and Sunnyvale are actually a bit warmer as they usually are. It's 12.20 AM and my reading is 34.5F. There are no readings in this area (cities I mentioned) in the twenties much less the mid twenties! Palo Alto may be the exception in this area. It gets considerably colder there.

Jim in Los Altos, CA  SF Bay Area 37.34N- 122.13W- 190' above sea level

zone 10a/9b

sunset zone 16

300+ palms, 90+ species in the ground

Las Palmas Design

Facebook Page

Las Palmas Design & Associates

Elegant Homes and Gardens

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Jim got any houses for sale in the neighborhood? I'm ready to move to a warmer zone. lol

I like Mountain View, Palo Alto and San Mateo is okay too. Are some of those areas warmer or colder than Los Altos?

Derrick, Mountain View is great, especially as near to the bay as possible. Palo Alto is chillier and San Mateo is pretty good but you have to like wind, especially in the summer.

Jim in Los Altos, CA  SF Bay Area 37.34N- 122.13W- 190' above sea level

zone 10a/9b

sunset zone 16

300+ palms, 90+ species in the ground

Las Palmas Design

Facebook Page

Las Palmas Design & Associates

Elegant Homes and Gardens

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Thanks for the advice. Didn't realize Cupertino and Santa Clara were just as warm. But you're right about Palo Alto, it's getting hammered right now.. and especially Menlo Park. 26F at 1AM (same temp as me here in Rocklin). It's gonna be a long night tonight :( Its trying to beat 1990 I guess.

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Hit 32f at 4:49am this morning. First dip below 40f for the year. Bananas still look good for now.

"it's not dead it's sleeping"

Santee ca, zone10a/9b

18 miles from the ocean

avg. winter 68/40.avg summer 88/64.records 113/25

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35F inside the unheated greenhouse out back in san marcos....got a little colder than i thought it would....heaters go in tonight for sure.

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Must have been close to freezing, ice on the windshield. Lovely.

Bret

 

Coastal canyon area of San Diego

 

"In the shadow of the Cross"

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Bottomed out at 35°f. Frost on open ground is MUCH more widespread and thicker than the cold event last January. So far it appears there is no frost on anything but roofs, grass and the tops of cars.

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Coldest of the season by 5 degrees,36F this AM in the coldest part of the yard, 41F in the back under canopy. All the exposed cars have a thick layer of ice and it looks like tonight will be colder. Booo!

Carl

Vista, CA

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Well, finally went below 32F with a 31.2F reading at 7AM. It's completely frost free though, not even on neighbor's lawns or anyone's roof. Very dry indeed. The worrying was for nothing and thank you Intellicast for being the most accurate through this cold spell by far. Looks like one more chilly night before things moderate. Now, if it would just rain!

Jim in Los Altos, CA  SF Bay Area 37.34N- 122.13W- 190' above sea level

zone 10a/9b

sunset zone 16

300+ palms, 90+ species in the ground

Las Palmas Design

Facebook Page

Las Palmas Design & Associates

Elegant Homes and Gardens

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Bottomed out at 31f in Riverside.... Everything looks good. Hoping the wind keeps it from getting too cold.... Earlier forecast had it as low of 26 tonight... But now they're saying 30. Fingers crossed.

Dave

 

Riverside, CA Z 9b

1700 ft. elevation

approx 40 miles inland

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850mb supposed to warm by 10C up from -5C to about +5C today as the East Pacific High moves inland over California. This means a more pronounced inversion layer and lower dewpoints. Wind protected coastal valleys will get slammed again tomorrow Morning, possibly colder, but higher elevation locations are going to fare better. The Central Valley is going to get colder under the inversion over the next couple of days so watch out there. Usually under these conditions Rocklin should fare better than the valley floor. By Thursday everyone should be out of the woods, knock on wood.

For Socal, my bet is that only wind protected locations are going to see anything close to freezing tomorrow. The winds should pick up pretty strong, the hills are going to fare much better but valleys and canyons with poor Santa Ana wind penetration are gonna get cold. Santee is a bit of a bowl, Steve, better check the temp, dew points and wind tonite.

Here's my local report from the Monterey Bay area. For what it's worth, last night was completely different. Saturday night Monterey was running 45F overnight thanks to slightly onshore Northwesterly flow, whereas last night the flow switched, putting Monterey in the wind shadow. Monterey airport was at 35F by 8PM and it's 28F down there this Morning, which probably ties the 1990 record. Monterey is officially USDA 10a. The lower parts of Scotts Valley hit 19F this Morning. As of 9AM it's still 24F in Boulder Creek, where it bottomed out at 22F a couple of hours ago. Santa Cruz is all over the map, from places that didn't freeze at all to places that hit as low as 26F, all a function of wind exposure. Even Seabright had lows around 27F a block from the beach. Last night I drove over the summit at highway 17, the steep lapse rates were pretty evident as the car thermometer dropped from 7C in Scotts Valley (500 feet) to 1C at the summit at 1750 feet. Tonite will probably be reverse due to the inversion layer that will form.

For the Monterey Bay, so far this freeze is on par to slightly worse than 1998, but not as bad as 1990. 2007 was not a major freeze event here (30F in most places), but seems to have hit Silicon Valley with more intensity and obviously nailed Southern California real bad. This time around, Southern California didn't even get hit (unless you call those puny numbers you are posting a "freeze".)

Time to go out and assess the damage, pick up the pieces and start posting some freeze damage reports.

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Axel, thanks for the update. Rocklin is on the east side of the valley, so we are wind protected which can be good to keep dew points from dropping during the day. Last night though, wind West of Sacramento kept temps above freezing all night long but not here. :( With nasty 850mb temps and no wind, all I can do is hard freeze. Hoping to pick up up some inversion layer, but at only 160ft, I will probably have another cold night. But with the high pressure building, I am looking forward to nice temps and maybe around 70 above the inversion.

Edited by enigma99
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39f for me this morning. Patchy frost in the lowlands of Spring Valley, but lots of frost seen on rooftops in El Cajon and out to Alpine.

Matt Bradford

"Manambe Lavaka"

Spring Valley, CA (8.5 miles inland from San Diego Bay)

10B on the hill (635 ft. elevation)

9B in the canyon (520 ft. elevation)

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My house is at an approximately 500 ft elevation. This "freeze" so far has only browned a small number of my heliconia leaves but coleus are goners. Even impatiens are still green and flowering, mango and papayas look great and all palms are unscathed. Royal, foxy lady, and foxtail are looking just like they did a week ago. One more cold night to go before warming starts. :)

Jim in Los Altos, CA  SF Bay Area 37.34N- 122.13W- 190' above sea level

zone 10a/9b

sunset zone 16

300+ palms, 90+ species in the ground

Las Palmas Design

Facebook Page

Las Palmas Design & Associates

Elegant Homes and Gardens

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It was 27F at 11:00 last night in Santa Rosa, CA, and at some point early this morning my thermostat recorded a low of 23.

Since Wednesday of last week the lows have been...

Wed - 26.6

Thurs - 23.5

Fri - 23.5

Sat - 30.2

Sun - 26.1

...and on each of these nights the temp was below freezing for 6 - 9 hours.

There was still frost on the ground in the shade yesterday at 4:00 p.m. from the morning, and birdbaths had ice all day.

I didn't protect any palms or cycads in any way except having mulch on the ground around them. I don't see any damage on anything at this point. I only grow the hardiest of the hardy with a few experiments thrown in (small Bismark, Parajubaea t.). So far the only cold damage I see is on various garden plants such as Strelitzia, Passiflora, Setcreasea...etc...which I expect every year, and the Bismark palm is turning purple.

I built a small plastic greenhouse to help protect some palm seedlings, a small banana tree, and an Allamanda vine, and I managed to raise the temp inside by 6 degrees warmer than outside buy running a food dehydrator in it all night long, and the only thing with leaf damage is the banana.

Going to go outside again and take another look, maybe eat some dried persimmons... :winkie:

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My house is at an approximately 500 ft elevation. This "freeze" so far has only browned a small number of my heliconia leaves but coleus are goners. Even impatiens are still green and flowering, mango and papayas look great and all palms are unscathed. Royal, foxy lady, and foxtail are looking just like they did a week ago. One more cold night to go before warming starts. :)

Go ahead and rub it in, sounds like your neighborhood was one of the very, very few places that got spared. Even Monterey which is 10a got down to 28F this Morning. When I look at the Wunderground map for 7AM, it's widespread 30F and colder everywhere except Los Altos Hills and far Western Cupertino. Even Santa Clara was in the upper 20's. Weston Rd this Morning was 30F and slightly colder overnight. This was a record event, San Jose set a record of 25F for the date since recorded weather history.

ScreenShot2013-12-09at104507AM_zpsd0f9e1

ScreenShot2013-12-09at104703AM_zps3d0a8f

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Low of 37 here last night which was the lowest yet. Supposed to be a bit colder tonight, then it looks like it will start warming back up.

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My house is at an approximately 500 ft elevation. This "freeze" so far has only browned a small number of my heliconia leaves but coleus are goners. Even impatiens are still green and flowering, mango and papayas look great and all palms are unscathed. Royal, foxy lady, and foxtail are looking just like they did a week ago. One more cold night to go before warming starts. :)

Actually, I posted the wrong graphs, the low today in the South Bay occured around 4AM this Morning, this looks pretty horrible:

ScreenShot2013-12-09at120746PM_zps8b789f

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Will, would those be freeze dried persimmons? LOL. I don't think we personally got as low as your 23s here during this cold period but I know some neighborhood areas due to topography might have. Temps at 6 a.m. were 26F on our outdoor sensor. I went out for coffee after 9am, and our front yard, which pretty much sits in the shade due to a street tree and house shadow in the morning sun, was all frosted over white (except for about a foot around the garage wall and a good distance in front of our fence/butia but there was frost closer to the street). I hadn't thought about it until I saw it this a.m. but never thought to protect our lecadendrums in the front yard, and being planted only this fall, not sure if that wasn't a mistake. Their nice red colored leaves looked frosted.

Did a tour of our backyard which had some disappointments. The frost cloth we had placed over some of our larger strelitzia reginea had come off half of the plants in the light winds we got I guess. They definitely were affected by the frost, browning on some was very obvious. I wasn't surprised so much that this happened behind our seating area but was surprised the birds planted along the southeast-facing wall at our house with slight overhang, were effected. The rest of the birds were still covered so hoping for no damage there. I also noticed some browning of leaves on one of our two Pittospoyum tenuifolium "silver magics" that were tucked along our northeast facing house wall. The one facing the backyard was the one more exposed I guess.

The dwarf orange in our front yard had c9s on it and sits in a corner close to a stucco'd wall and wooden fence. The frost line on the ground just seemed to miss the orange tree so hoping for little damage on it despite being in the morning shade as well.

Zone 9b (formerly listed as Zone 9a); Sunset 14

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We had 26f this am... ice in the cat dish.

Some palms are showing damage.

Modesto, CA USDA 9b

July/August average 95f/63f

Dec/Jan average 55f/39f

Average lowest winter temp 27f

Record low temp 18f

Record high temp 113f

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We had 26f this am... ice in the cat dish.

Some palms are showing damage.

Inch thick ice in the toddler pool in our frost pit, fully iced over by 10PM even before it dropped below freezing.

Good news today is the first day above 60F here.

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My house is at an approximately 500 ft elevation. This "freeze" so far has only browned a small number of my heliconia leaves but coleus are goners. Even impatiens are still green and flowering, mango and papayas look great and all palms are unscathed. Royal, foxy lady, and foxtail are looking just like they did a week ago. One more cold night to go before warming starts. :)

Actually, I posted the wrong graphs, the low today in the South Bay occured around 4AM this Morning, this looks pretty horrible:

ScreenShot2013-12-09at120746PM_zps8b789f

This correlates well with my 31 degree reading this morning. That's the coldest in a number of years for me. None of my neighbor's four thermometers at the very top of my street recorded anything below 34F. Microclimates vary hugely in just a matter of feet around here. A block away from me is a street that gets slammed by cold air draining from above and cold air that funnels in from a low lying creek that originates in the nearby foothills and ice in the gutters along the street stayed frozen all day. Talk about contrasts.

Jim in Los Altos, CA  SF Bay Area 37.34N- 122.13W- 190' above sea level

zone 10a/9b

sunset zone 16

300+ palms, 90+ species in the ground

Las Palmas Design

Facebook Page

Las Palmas Design & Associates

Elegant Homes and Gardens

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Been feeling cold in the house and checked our local Wunderground station. 34.5F. Several hours until midnight so yikes. Hasn't been this cold so early. Low by BestSource is 31F, however NWS is 25F--quite a big difference. Supposedly last really cold night for our area and then slow warmup although NWS puts tomorrow night at 31F. I would check temps against our outdoor sensor, but as of this afternoon it isn't registering. Probably the cold zapped all the battery life. And they were fresh when installed a few days ago.

I attempted to recover one of the birds this afternoon but feeling it's a lost cause. Didn't like the feel of the leaves. The dwarf orange tree looked like it has some browning on some of the leaves today. Time for some hot cocoa....

Zone 9b (formerly listed as Zone 9a); Sunset 14

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WCG....makes you want to plant more cocoid hybrids...yes? If I were you I would be planting all those cold hardy med loving crownshafted palms....D. decipiens, Rhopies etc.

Guess I need to start checking the Freeze damage threads to get the latest. Unseasonably warm here....but we will have our time I'm sure.

David Simms zone 9a on Highway 30a

200 steps from the Gulf in NW Florida

30 ft. elevation and sandy soil

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Wunderground forecasting 30f over night. Accuweather saying 35f. A small but incredibly important difference in temps. Wish I knew which to believe.

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Wind totally died. I'm showing 37 already. Neato. Awesome. Amazing. Fantastic. Beautiful.

"it's not dead it's sleeping"

Santee ca, zone10a/9b

18 miles from the ocean

avg. winter 68/40.avg summer 88/64.records 113/25

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Wind died here too.... Temp dropped to 38 but has picked back up to 40. I'm hopeful it won't get too cold here...

Dave

 

Riverside, CA Z 9b

1700 ft. elevation

approx 40 miles inland

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I hope this is the last night of this crap, I've just about had it. Pretty windy in the hills around here, the Summit in the Santa Cruz mountains is still in the low 40's, wind here as well, but not as strong. The winds are supposed to die down overnight and a freeze advisory is in effect everywhere in Norcal except San Franciso County and Jim's place, starting at 10pm. All low lying valleys are already below freezing. Anyone in the hills is going to get spared tonite.

850mb temps up a solid 10C, so no more cold air aloft, but the inversion is kicking in strong and amplifying the cold for low lying areas with no winds. This scenario is worse tonite for the Central Valley, low dewpoints and temps already below freezing in many areas. Newman is at 26F already, some stations in Modesto at 30F. Not looking good in San Jose either, South San Jose and Saratoga already below 32F. Dewpoints are in the lower 20's, not looking good.

So watch out, could be the worst night yet.

Thinking I might rent a little plot in Jim's yard to grow some palms. :)

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Yeah, that's snow.

Had a bit early Saturday.

Those kings are under a pine tree and so far don't look that bad.

post-3415-0-29609000-1386658409_thumb.jp

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5am and hit 32. I woke up at 3:45am and it was 35 so it looks like a short freeze for me. Bananas still look good.

"it's not dead it's sleeping"

Santee ca, zone10a/9b

18 miles from the ocean

avg. winter 68/40.avg summer 88/64.records 113/25

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Looks like we had a low of around 38... Much warmer than I expected.

Dave

 

Riverside, CA Z 9b

1700 ft. elevation

approx 40 miles inland

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