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Weird December...


Funkthulhu

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One thing I noticed about the temperatures in Barcelona are the very mild record lows. The fact that it almost never freezes seems like it would at least give a coconut palm a chance. For instance, in Montgomery our January average high is about the same, it's 57F but our record low is 0F so I don't even think about planting a Cococnut :( One day though I'm going to live somewhere tropical haha.

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On January 5, 2016 at 7:11:47 PM, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Wow,

That's a really mild winter climate, and yet we keep setting worldwide heat records in both summer and winter.  Unfortunately, there are those who still want to deny manmade climate change.  When the climate changed in the past, it was gradual and over hundreds  and even thousands of years, except when a sudden catastrophic event occurred like an asteroid hitting the Earth.  However, the rapid pace of climate change today, just over the last few decades is unprecedented and I think entirely manmade.

Climate is a trend over the span over 30 or so years. And in the past 30 years our climate has shown hardly any change at all while we are burning more than twice the amount of fossil fuels than in the 70s. I'm not saying man can't contribute to a warming trend I'm just saying look at the models that were put in place in the 90s. All of them have failed. one warm winter is weather not climate. In San Diego it's been abnormally cold. I'm not going to claim an ice age is coming.  But being that we are coming out of an ice age I would certainly hope the climate does warm as it should. Who's to say what an "acceptable" rate is. 

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"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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6 hours ago, nitsua0895 said:

One thing I noticed about the temperatures in Barcelona are the very mild record lows. The fact that it almost never freezes seems like it would at least give a coconut palm a chance. For instance, in Montgomery our January average high is about the same, it's 57F but our record low is 0F so I don't even think about planting a Cococnut :( One day though I'm going to live somewhere tropical haha.

Austin,

The problem is it is just too chilly there for too long, like in Galveston.  Galveston is a 10A Climate, but it's a very cool 10A Climate in the winter.  Even though they rarely drop below 30F, it's the very chilly days of only around 60F with lows around 48F that makes it just too chilly for too long during the winter to grow them there.  I know, I have tried and so have others there including Moody Gardens.   Here in Corpus Christi, we just BARELY have enough winter warmth on average to try them here.

John

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9 hours ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Austin,

The problem is it is just too chilly there for too long, like in Galveston.  Galveston is a 10A Climate, but it's a very cool 10A Climate in the winter.  Even though they rarely drop below 30F, it's the very chilly days of only around 60F with lows around 48F that makes it just too chilly for too long during the winter to grow them there.  I know, I have tried and so have others there including Moody Gardens.   Here in Corpus Christi, we just BARELY have enough winter warmth on average to try them here.

John

Hmm, I thought Corpus Christi is technically a 9b?

I looked at USDA plant maps and they changed it from 9a to 9b in 2010. Maybe there are some microclimates they haven't shaded yet.

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On ‎1‎/‎17‎/‎2016‎ ‎1‎:‎37‎:‎58‎, Stevetoad said:

Climate is a trend over the span over 30 or so years. And in the past 30 years our climate has shown hardly any change at all while we are burning more than twice the amount of fossil fuels than in the 70s. I'm not saying man can't contribute to a warming trend I'm just saying look at the models that were put in place in the 90s. All of them have failed. one warm winter is weather not climate. In San Diego it's been abnormally cold. I'm not going to claim an ice age is coming.  But being that we are coming out of an ice age I would certainly hope the climate does warm as it should. Who's to say what an "acceptable" rate is. 

There is someone else here on Palmtalk that says he's having a really mild winter and I think he is near San Diego.  Anyway, I have noticed serious climate changes in the last 30+ years here in Texas and in Florida.  South Texas is a LOT more tropical now than it was just 30 years ago, but Centrai and northern South Florida seem to have gotten colder, so it's like the two sides of the Gulf have flip flopped.  I still stand by my assertion and that of 95% of the scientific community that what we are seeing is entirely manmade and NOT part of any natural cycles.

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On ‎1‎/‎17‎/‎2016‎ ‎6‎:‎11‎:‎47‎, NorCalKing said:

Hmm, I thought Corpus Christi is technically a 9b?

I looked at USDA plant maps and they changed it from 9a to 9b in 2010. Maybe there are some microclimates they haven't shaded yet.

Ron,

You are right about most of Corpus Christi.  It used to be 9A, except for Padre Island, which was 9B, but now the entire city all the way out to the West end of Calallen is 9B, with the East half of Ocean Dr. along the bayfront, Flour Bluff where I live (the peninsula on the East side of town) and Padre and Mustang Islands are now Zone 10A (the islands are solidly Zone 10A and many winters 10B now).  That is why we are growing coconut palms on the East side of town now.

John

P.S.  I have seen a new Climate Zone Map last year I think it was or in late 2014 that officially reclassified the above mentioned areas right along the immediate coast as 10A, but I can't remember where I saw it.  I think a Palm Society friend of mine here told me about it.

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46 minutes ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

There is someone else here on Palmtalk that says he's having a really mild winter and I think he is near San Diego.  Anyway, I have noticed serious climate changes in the last 30+ years here in Texas and in Florida.  South Texas is a LOT more tropical now than it was just 30 years ago, but Centrai and northern South Florida seem to have gotten colder, so it's like the two sides of the Gulf have flip flopped.  I still stand by my assertion and that of 95% of the scientific community that what we are seeing is entirely manmade and NOT part of any natural cycles.

 

Florida hasn't changed too much in the last 50 years as far as annual minimums go, but most places do have a slight upward trend, with the exception of Clearwater. Brownsville has a similar trend to Orlando and Ft. Myers. Despite it's downward trend, Clearwater still beats Brownsville by 1.5˚ for it's 2016 adjusted USDA zone based on the trend line.

Here are some charts I've made in the past few months. The red line is 32˚, and the black line is the zone trend. 

 

Brownsville.png

Clearwater.png

Orlando.png

Satellite Beach zone trend.png

Ft. Myers.png

Palm Beach.png

Keith 

Palmetto, Florida (10a) and Tampa, Florida (9b/10a)

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43 minutes ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Ron,

You are right about most of Corpus Christi.  It used to be 9A, except for Padre Island, which was 9B, but now the entire city all the way out to the West end of Calallen is 9B, with the East half of Ocean Dr. along the bayfront, Flour Bluff where I live (the peninsula on the East side of town) and Padre and Mustang Islands are now Zone 10A (the islands are solidly Zone 10A and many winters 10B now).  That is why we are growing coconut palms on the East side of town now.

John

P.S.  I have seen a new Climate Zone Map last year I think it was or in late 2014 that officially reclassified the above mentioned areas right along the immediate coast as 10A, but I can't remember where I saw it.  I think a Palm Society friend of mine here told me about it.

Nice. Figured something hadn't been updated. Growing coconuts is certainly a nice benefit of a warming climate. On a local note. Since our early cold winter start here in NorCal the overnight lows have been solidly in the 40-45+ range. Too bad for the early season chills (and my fried GBOP) lol

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6 minutes ago, Zeeth said:

 

Florida hasn't changed too much in the last 50 years as far as annual minimums go, but most places do have a slight upward trend, with the exception of Clearwater.

Here are some charts I've made in the past few months. The red line is 32˚, and the black line is the zone trend. 

 

Brownsville.png

Clearwater.png

Orlando.png

Satellite Beach zone trend.png

Ft. Myers.png

Palm Beach.png

That's interesting Keith.  I was going by observations and not actual statistics.  It seems that Florida, even South Florida has been hit by some really unusually BAD winters over the last 15 or so years.  When I lived in Coral Springs, on the morning of Jan. 1, 2001 as I recall, it got all the way down to 28F as far south as Homestead and all of Southeast Florida that winter was under frost and freeze warnings almost up to the Intracoastal Waterway off and on for about 3 straight weeks.  It was a VERY BAD winter, but maybe not as bad as 2010, but I remember them saying that in the northern Glades, it dropped down to 19F, the coldest ever recorded in the Glades and killed 40,000 acres of sugar cane.

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7 minutes ago, NorCalKing said:

Nice. Figured something hadn't been updated. Growing coconuts is certainly a nice benefit of a warming climate. On a local note. Since our early cold winter start here in NorCal the overnight lows have been solidly in the 40-45+ range. Too bad for the early season chills (and my fried GBOP) lol

Hey Ron,

Coconut palms are again becoming fairly common (by Texas standards anyway) in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, after not being grown at all there for about 11 or 12 years after the '80's deep freezes that killed ALL the coconut palms there across the board.  There are now nice mature fruiting sized ones from Edinburg to South Padre tht have been growing for years. By he way, what is GBOP?

John

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1 hour ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

There is someone else here on Palmtalk that says he's having a really mild winter and I think he is near San Diego.  Anyway, I have noticed serious climate changes in the last 30+ years here in Texas and in Florida.  South Texas is a LOT more tropical now than it was just 30 years ago, but Centrai and northern South Florida seem to have gotten colder, so it's like the two sides of the Gulf have flip flopped.  I still stand by my assertion and that of 95% of the scientific community that what we are seeing is entirely manmade and NOT part of any natural cycles.

ignoring that the "95% of scientist agree" came from a survey that John cook put together to support his view and that many weren't climatologists and he chose what classified an "agree" or disagree and that they were based on "current models"(from 1991) which those models have now been proven to be wrong. What is the danger of a warmer climate? The frequent storms have been proven wrong now so is longer growing seasons at higher latitudes or a milder safer global temperature a bad thing? Climate is always changing. In San Diego we couldn't grow coconut palms reliably 100 years ago and we sure can grow them reliably today. This debate of climate change has been going on since the late 60s and we are in no more danger now than we were then even though our global carbon emissions are greatly larger today. So after almost 50 years of hearing how we are doomed don't you question what your being told? 

"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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I certainly question all the deniers who have a vested interest in protecting BIG OIL PROFIT MARGINS AT ALL COSTS!  There is just so much OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that it is happening all around us, from the record warmth at the North Pole and resulting record melting of the polar ice caps to the record warming of the oceans, to the depletion of the rainforests and devastation to the world's coral reefs to the acidification of the oceans.  We are confirmed in the midst of the worst extinction of many species worldwide, both terrestrial and marine, but this time and the last time, the unique thing is it is entirely due to mankind's arrogant stupidity!  We are poisoning ourselves with all sorts of harmful chemicals and now the air is not fit to breathe in many areas, and the water is not fit to drink.  Also, the land is sterile and not suitable for agriculture in many areas now.  We are certainly changing the climate and destroying this once healthy beautiful planet we were blessed with.  A changing climate IS NOT goring to benefit us or the flora and fauna!  Just look at what is happening on a regular basis now in Miami Beach and the Keys with rising sea levels and the sea snakes washing up along the California coastline, etc., etc., etc.!

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40 minutes ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Hey Ron,

Coconut palms are again becoming fairly common (by Texas standards anyway) in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, after not being grown at all there for about 11 or 12 years after the '80's deep freezes that killed ALL the coconut palms there across the board.  There are now nice mature fruiting sized ones from Edinburg to South Padre tht have been growing for years. By he way, what is GBOP?

John

Giant Bird Of Paradise :)

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I assure I have no vested interest in big oil. Also all the "over whelming" evidence is horrendously blanketed as global warm but how much of that is man made global warm because practically all climatologists who agree with man made global warming say were only looking at a fraction of a degree in 100 years. Not nearly enough to cause any of the disasters your claiming. And by the way yellow belly sea snakes are rare but perfectly native to our California waters well before man started living in huts. Here's a nice pic of the 5 mile poison lake in China where you can't even breathe without a gas mask. All from the byproduct of rare earth minerals that are use to make "green" wind turbines. Meanwhile the air in LOs Angeles where smog and acid rain was once a real issue is now all but a memory of the 80s. 

 

image.jpeg

"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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2 minutes ago, NorCalKing said:

Giant Bird Of Paradise :)

Duh!  I should have known that, but I was thinking in terms of palms.

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On 17/1/2016 8:03:34, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Thanks, Proeza.  That's surprising that they are selling coconut palms there, since their winter climate is just too chilly for them.  Look at their Dec. mean temp of 54.1F, Jan mean temp of 53.2F, and Feb. mean temp of 54.3F.   Where I live, the absolute northernmost limit of where you can grow them in Texas, we only have an average temp in the 50'sF for about a month, not a total of 5 months like there.  You would need a milder winter climate than that to successfully grow coconut palms outdoors in the ground.  They need an average soil temp of at least 60F or warmer about 95% of the time, and where I live, it is barely at that threshold about 90% to 95% of the time.  Anyway, try to buy some of their coconut palms and try them where you live, especially if your climate is at least slightly milder in the winter.

John

But that's not my climate hehe, that's the climate in the place where the nursery is located, it's at 41º30'N, the winter lows are surprisingly high.

The climate of the place where is live is this one:

2guik9d.jpg

Although those are only a few years , but if the last year would be included there too, the lows of december and january would be higher, specially the ones from december. In the last december of 2015 the average of minimums was slightly above 10ºC (50ºF)

From 2005 to 2015 another station close to here (4km in the south) has recorded an average annual temperature of 19,5ºC (67,1ºF) 

Bizzies grow up very fast, I've seen a couple of Bizzies on abandoned fields growing big only with rain water... The climate is quite arid.

2r2omz6.jpg

(Those ones from above are irrigated). Here is the evolution of Raveneas:

20j6b21.jpg

Here the photo from above it's of 2008 and the other one is from 2013. They must be bigger now.

Edited by pRoeZa*

I live in Altea, Spain 38°34'N 0º03'O. USDA zone 11a. Coastal microclimate sheltered by mountains. 
The coconuts shown in my avatar are from the Canary Islands, Spain ! :)

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10 minutes ago, pRoeZa* said:

But that's not my climate hehe, that's the climate in the place where the nursery is located, it's at 41º30'N, the winter lows are surprisingly high.

The climate of the place where is live is this one:

2guik9d.jpg

Although those are only a few years , but if the last year would be included there too, the lows of december and january would be higher, specially the ones from december. In the last december of 2015 the average of minimums was slightly above 10ºC (50ºF)

From 2005 to 2015 another station close to here (4km in the south) has recorded an average annual temperature of 19,5ºC (67,1ºF) 

Bizzies grow up very fast, I've seen a couple of Bizzies on abandoned fields growing big only with rain water... The climate is quite arid.

2r2omz6.jpg

(Those ones from above are irrigated). Here is the evolution of Raveneas:

20j6b21.jpg

Here the photo from above it's of 2008 and the other one is from 2013. They must be bigger now.

Looks good, and I think if you could create a microclimate in your yard, you could possibly grow one of the more cold hardy Tall varieties of coconut palm, like the Jamaican Tall or Mexican Tall, but I don't think your climate is mild enough for it to fruit though.

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15 minutes ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Looks good, and I think if you could create a microclimate in your yard, you could possibly grow one of the more cold hardy Tall varieties of coconut palm, like the Jamaican Tall or Mexican Tall, but I don't think your climate is mild enough for it to fruit though.

I would be grateful if it survives one winter... :lol:

I live in Altea, Spain 38°34'N 0º03'O. USDA zone 11a. Coastal microclimate sheltered by mountains. 
The coconuts shown in my avatar are from the Canary Islands, Spain ! :)

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41 minutes ago, pRoeZa* said:

I would be grateful if it survives one winter... :lol:

Be sure and try one and see how long you can get it to survive.:hmm:

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10 hours ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

That's interesting Keith.  I was going by observations and not actual statistics.  It seems that Florida, even South Florida has been hit by some really unusually BAD winters over the last 15 or so years.  When I lived in Coral Springs, on the morning of Jan. 1, 2001 as I recall, it got all the way down to 28F as far south as Homestead and all of Southeast Florida that winter was under frost and freeze warnings almost up to the Intracoastal Waterway off and on for about 3 straight weeks.  It was a VERY BAD winter, but maybe not as bad as 2010, but I remember them saying that in the northern Glades, it dropped down to 19F, the coldest ever recorded in the Glades and killed 40,000 acres of sugar cane.

Yeah, you can see 2001 on most of my charts as being pretty cold (though not as damaging as 2010). We've always had that though. The winter of 1894 brought Ft. Myers and West Palm Beach down to 24˚. It was 22˚ in Clearwater in 1962 (the second coldest temperature recorded by that station was 27˚ in 1996, and it recorded 28˚ in 1989). In January 1977, the year that it snowed in Broward and Miami, Fairchild recorded a low of 26˚, and nearby Montgomery recorded 25˚. Only the Keys have ever been truly safe from freezing temperatures. 

Keith 

Palmetto, Florida (10a) and Tampa, Florida (9b/10a)

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53 minutes ago, Zeeth said:

Yeah, you can see 2001 on most of my charts as being pretty cold (though not as damaging as 2010). We've always had that though. The winter of 1894 brought Ft. Myers and West Palm Beach down to 24˚. It was 22˚ in Clearwater in 1962 (the second coldest temperature recorded by that station was 27˚ in 1996, and it recorded 28˚ in 1989). In January 1977, the year that it snowed in Broward and Miami, Fairchild recorded a low of 26˚, and nearby Montgomery recorded 25˚. Only the Keys have ever been truly safe from freezing temperatures. 

Yeah, that's why the Keys are truly a Zone 11A Climate and truly tropical in every sense of the word.

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Just now, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Yeah, that's why the Keys are truly a Zone 11A Climate and truly tropical in every sense of the word.

Correction, the Keys are truly an 11A/11B Climate, since the Lower Keys almost never drop below about 46F.

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1 minute ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Correction, the Keys are truly an 11A/11B Climate, since the Lower Keys almost never drop below about 46F.

The average low for Key west between 1950 and 2015 is 49.89˚, so it's definitely 11B. I haven't calculated the data from any of the other keys, but Islamorada has seen as low as 36˚, so I suspect it's more within the 11A range.

Keith 

Palmetto, Florida (10a) and Tampa, Florida (9b/10a)

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9 minutes ago, Zeeth said:

The average low for Key west between 1950 and 2015 is 49.89˚, so it's definitely 11B. I haven't calculated the data from any of the other keys, but Islamorada has seen as low as 36˚, so I suspect it's more within the 11A range.

I think the all time record low for Key West is 41F.  I wonder what it is for Key Largo?

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 19/1/2016 7:22:43, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Be sure and try one and see how long you can get it to survive.:hmm:

Hello buddy, I update this almost a month later, to say that the winter is even warmer than I was expecting...

Those are the temperature previsions for the next days: Those days are quite warm, specially the minimums.

We arrived to 23ºC (73,4ºF) today, and the minimum was 17ºC (62,6ºF) , the weekend is expected with 62,6-66,2ºF minimums... :blink:

2432bea.jpg

I live in Altea, Spain 38°34'N 0º03'O. USDA zone 11a. Coastal microclimate sheltered by mountains. 
The coconuts shown in my avatar are from the Canary Islands, Spain ! :)

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Weird February...

Next week is going to be 50's....

"Ph'nglui mglw'napalma Funkthulhu R'Lincolnea wgah'palm fhtagn"
"In his house at Lincoln, dread Funkthulhu plants palm trees."

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10 hours ago, pRoeZa* said:

Hello buddy, I update this almost a month later, to say that the winter is even warmer than I was expecting...

Those are the temperature previsions for the next days: Those days are quite warm, specially the minimums.

We arrived to 23ºC (73,4ºF) today, and the minimum was 17ºC (62,6ºF) , the weekend is expected with 62,6-66,2ºF minimums... :blink:

2432bea.jpg

That's a nice mild Feb. for you.  I take it, that normally Feb. wouldn't be that mild for you.  I wonder if it's the effects of Global Warming?  By the way, your record lows on the other chart you posted above look pretty mild with records in the 30'sF.

John

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