Winter Weather Threat - February 2011

[happ]

Freeze over. I hit 13F for a low which isn't that bad, but was far below freezing for 84 consecutive hours. That totaled up to 1,059.5 freezing degree hours. For reference the much briefer, but colder 1989 freeze totaled 1,125.2 freezing degree hours. Frond damage would have been worse in 1989, but the cold should have penetrated about the same distance into the trunks this week as 1989. From that standpoint this freeze was twice as bad as last winter's even though last winter we got a little colder. Unfortunately, the 1951 and 1983 freezes were about twice as bad as this. I don't think any palm could survive those without protection, and maybe not even with protection. In 1983 the lakes here had 7" of ice on them.

Appreciate your documentation. Are you a weather spotter? If not, you might want to submit your data to the national weather service. This event had national impact that included sub-freezing temps as far west of the deserts of California, Nevada and Arizona and historic snowfall in the Great Lakes\ upper Midwest. It appears Texas was ground zero. Sorry that your palms suffered from this arctic invasion but from the perspective of a weather nerd it was fascinating watching this event unfold.

[Xenon]

Freeze over. I hit 13F for a low which isn't that bad, but was far below freezing for 84 consecutive hours. That totaled up to 1,059.5 freezing degree hours. For reference the much briefer, but colder 1989 freeze totaled 1,125.2 freezing degree hours. Frond damage would have been worse in 1989, but the cold should have penetrated about the same distance into the trunks this week as 1989. From that standpoint this freeze was twice as bad as last winter's even though last winter we got a little colder. Unfortunately, the 1951 and 1983 freezes were about twice as bad as this. I don't think any palm could survive those without protection, and maybe not even with protection. In 1983 the lakes here had 7" of ice on them.

Appreciate your documentation. Are you a weather spotter? If not, you might want to submit your data to the national weather service. This event had national impact that included sub-freezing temps as far west of the deserts of California, Nevada and Arizona and historic snowfall in the Great Lakes\ upper Midwest. It appears Texas was ground zero. Sorry that your palms suffered from this arctic invasion but from the perspective of a weather nerd it was fascinating watching this event unfold.

Brownsville broke a record for the low maximum temperature ever....

From NWS Brownsville:

"... Record lowest maximum temperature set at Brownsville...

A record lowest maximum temperature of 36 degrees was set at

Brownsville international Airport yesterday. This breaks the old

record of 39 degrees set in 1956. "

[Ed in Houston]

The NWS has dropped the low forecast at my place in SE Houston from 25 to 23. The clouds have been hanging on today and it looks like they will clear Houston about sundown setting up the scenario of minimum daytime warming due to clouds and maximum night time radiation with it being clear! The dew point is now at about 25 now and has been slowly dropping. Could be that the low temp and the dew point converge setting up a low of 23 with a very heavy frost as winds are forecast to be at only 2 mph at dawn!

While 23 will not damage (too much) my 20 year old palm "infrastructure" of chinese fan palm, washies, raphis, arenga, sabal louisiana and minor, and cycads, I have all but written off the young foxtail, and king, I have doubts about a 7 foot tall pygmy date and half a dozen cham cats and ravenea. My 25 foot tall grapefruit tree has about 50% of it leaves all curled up from the 23 a couple of nights ago. The grapefruit tree already looks more damaged than the 22 temp from last winter when extended cold weather for weeks had it well dormant; and it still has tonight to go through and what ever other evil is also served up with the next arctic express anticipated next week.

The good news is that last fall I picked up two more 7 foot kings for 12 bucks each, that are still potted and in the garage, waiting to be sacrificed next winter.

Ed in SE Houston

[mjff]

The clouds have been hanging on today and it looks like they will clear Houston about sundown setting up the scenario of minimum daytime warming due to clouds and maximum night time radiation with it being clear!

I love when that happens. We had the reverse today. Cloud cover all night with clearing at dawn. Even so we only managed to get to 38F for a high. I guess that's a lot better than the low 20's.

Good luck to y'all. Hope the clouds hang in there for you.

[war_eagle]

I just wouldn't expect anything less from this aweful cold snap. The sun has just come out and clouds are clearing away. The cloud cover has kept my high at 32.0 so far. The sun is helping to melt some of the ice, but many of my palms have been covered in ice since last night. At this point I'm not sure frost tonight even matters since the palms have been covered in ice for about 18 hours and counting. I will say the foliage has structurally held up better during this ice storm than it did with 3+ inches of snow last year. Some fronds were bent and bowing, but not nearly to the extint that they were last year. Tonight will be somewhere around 22-24, if the forecasts are correct. They've been off by quite a bit a few times this week, so hopefully they'll be wrong again. The low tomorrow has now dropped to 34, this just won't end.

Ed, the crowns of my two 15' foxtails have already collapsed. They are chocolate brown and the trunks are oozing a liquid substance that is now an icicle. I seriously doubt there are any left alive in Houston, unless provided with heat and covered tightly. They were the first two palm trees I ever bought.

[Ed in Houston]

In SE Houston we managed to get to 35 and the light icing from the freezing rain has melted. At 5:30pm the sky is clearing and the temp has dropped to 32.

Within a couple of miles of my place there are two neighbors that have foxtails that have about 10 foot trunks. One neighbor protected his and the other did not.

last fall I took a drive thur Tiki Island that is just off shore from the mainland near Galveston Island. There were a couple of beautiful Royal palms that had 15 foot or so trunks as I remember. It got down to the mid 20's on Galveston Island a couple of days ago and I expect that it was probably the same on Tiki Island. I hope that these made it as they were very attractive.

I won't be trying any more foxtails as they do not seem to like the average cool daytime 60s that we have here in wimter. I will try some more kings as they seem to enjoy Houston winter weather as long as they do not get a hard freeze. They seem to be a bit more cold hardy than the foxtails and don't mine cool weather at all.

Ed in SE Houston

[Xenon]

In SE Houston we managed to get to 35 and the light icing from the freezing rain has melted. At 5:30pm the sky is clearing and the temp has dropped to 32.

Within a couple of miles of my place there are two neighbors that have foxtails that have about 10 foot trunks. One neighbor protected his and the other did not.

last fall I took a drive thur Tiki Island that is just off shore from the mainland near Galveston Island. There were a couple of beautiful Royal palms that had 15 foot or so trunks as I remember. It got down to the mid 20's on Galveston Island a couple of days ago and I expect that it was probably the same on Tiki Island. I hope that these made it as they were very attractive.

I won't be trying any more foxtails as they do not seem to like the average cool daytime 60s that we have here in wimter. I will try some more kings as they seem to enjoy Houston winter weather as long as they do not get a hard freeze. They seem to be a bit more cold hardy than the foxtails and don't mine cool weather at all.

Ed in SE Houston

I think these are the Royals you're referring to, My link.

Jonathan

[Ed in Houston]

Yes Johnathan, those are the Tiki palms that I saw. Your link makes it difficult to decide what to plant next, a royal with its beauty or a Butia for it's wine. Of course, after a few glasses of wine the Butia might start looking better than the Royal.

Ed in SE Houston

[Erik]

And Ed, with your recent weather, Butia has got to seem all the more attractive.

[Takil-Explorer]

An iceday in Brownsville with a maximum of arround -2 C! That must be a disaster for a lot of exotic stuff there!

Alexander

[Xenon]

An iceday in Brownsville with a maximum of arround -2 C! That must be a disaster for a lot of exotic stuff there!

Alexander

Actually the low was about -2C with a high near 3C(although daytime high was only about 0C!), and yes it's terrible...

Jonathan

[war_eagle]

We got just enough of a south component in the west/southwest wind last night to avoid the predicted 22 degree low. I bottomed out at 26.9 with some frost. It was hard to tell if it was frost or just ice that was still around from yesterday. My high yesterday was only 32.9 with only 1-2 hours above freezing. Today warmed into the middle 60s, as is average for this time of year, under perfectly sunny skies. We deserve a few more days like today!

After walking through the yard today I am cautiously optimistic. We'll have to wait for a few weeks to be sure, but the damage I see today is not as bad as the damage that I saw a day or two after last January's stretch of three days near 20. The three that I'm least optimistic about are: foxtails (dead as a hammer), pygmies (defoliated at minimum), and Bismarckia (bottom fronds are purple/brown already, upper fronds are still silver but I know they are notoriously slow to show damage). I'll post a recovery thread later in spring with the rest of the palms.

The ten day forecast already shows two more nights in the mid 20s coming up Wednesday and Thursday nights. The highs will be in the mid-40s both days. It's funny, highs in the mid-40s used to sound horrible until this past week. The temp at my house went below 37 on Tuesday afternoon and didn't get above 37 again until about 9:30 on Saturday morning!

[mjff]

We got just enough of a south component in the west/southwest wind last night to avoid the predicted 22 degree low. I bottomed out at 26.9 with some frost. It was hard to tell if it was frost or just ice that was still around from yesterday. My high yesterday was only 32.9 with only 1-2 hours above freezing. Today warmed into the middle 60s, as is average for this time of year, under perfectly sunny skies. We deserve a few more days like today!

After walking through the yard today I am cautiously optimistic. We'll have to wait for a few weeks to be sure, but the damage I see today is not as bad as the damage that I saw a day or two after last January's stretch of three days near 20. The three that I'm least optimistic about are: foxtails (dead as a hammer), pygmies (defoliated at minimum), and Bismarckia (bottom fronds are purple/brown already, upper fronds are still silver but I know they are notoriously slow to show damage). I'll post a recovery thread later in spring with the rest of the palms.

The ten day forecast already shows two more nights in the mid 20s coming up Wednesday and Thursday nights. The highs will be in the mid-40s both days. It's funny, highs in the mid-40s used to sound horrible until this past week. The temp at my house went below 37 on Tuesday afternoon and didn't get above 37 again until about 9:30 on Saturday morning!

Sounds like you will come out ok.

Really ticked off at our weather forecasters out here. I'm to the point where I have nothing but contempt for them. Almost crawled through the TV screen last night to choke the guy on the local news as he spouted off the biggest bunch of BS I ever heard ending with a forecast low of 15F. It was obvious he was going to be way wrong, but just in case I hussled out into the 27F night air and plugged back in the Christmas lights. Woke up this morning, and surprise, still 27F outside which was the low. Unbelievable! Followed up his 15F low with a 52F high. Staring at 62F now. Don't know what to do about the arctic conditions they are forecasting for Wednesday (28F/15F). The only thing I'm really sure of is it will probably be either much warmer than that or much colder.

Frozen pipes thawed today, and no ruptures. Somebody remind me to cut off the water to my storage building before the freeze next time.

[Erik]

Martin,

our forecasters have been having trouble lately as well--I don't think they are used to this.

I had one night much warmer than predicted as clouds moved in, and another much colder than expected as the cloud cover they foresaw failed to materialize.

I also lost water to the horse/goat barn from frozen pipes so a lot of work hauling water from the house.

All palms (yes, even needles) are totally wrapped up, with electricity to half of them.

If the meteorologists are to be believed, one more week of snow and cold. --Erik

[mjff]

Martin,

our forecasters have been having trouble lately as well--I don't think they are used to this.

I had one night much warmer than predicted as clouds moved in, and another much colder than expected as the cloud cover they foresaw failed to materialize.

I also lost water to the horse/goat barn from frozen pipes so a lot of work hauling water from the house.

All palms (yes, even needles) are totally wrapped up, with electricity to half of them.

If the meteorologists are to be believed, one more week of snow and cold. --Erik

I'd understand them being wrong if the clouds did something different than anticipated, but that isn't the case. It was clear last night, forecast to stay clear, and in fact stayed clear. Where he screwed up was in failing to account for the fact that the wind was blowing from the SW, the dew point was 17F and rising, and the temperature hadn't budged in several hours. Now tell me how we were going to get to 15F without a front moving through which also wasn't in the forecast. This is like a supposed mathematician botching the answer to 2+2=4, and they've been screwing up the temperature forecast out here for months now even though exactly what was supposed to happen did they can't seem to get the temperature even close. Then after they botch the low in the morning you would think they would bump the forecast high up to take into account the higher start point, but I guess it's too easy to add the 12 degrees you were off this morning to the high you are predicting for this afternoon so you don't look like a complete idiot. It's absurd.

[mjff]

This is getting almost comical. After we blew through the forecast high yesterday, they left the forecast low the same (26F). Actual low 36F. Do the the math. The forecast high was 10F too low, so add that to the forecast low (26 + 10 = 36) and you don't wind up looking like a moron this morning. I notice they did bump the forecast high up all the way to 48-54F at 9:31 a.m. Only problem, 2 hours later the temperature was already nearly 60F. I suppose they can blame the front that is on the way not arriving on time, but looking at the radar it appears the front is still N of I-20 (over 100 miles away) and moving slowly this way. You're telling me at 9:30 they didn't know that the front was way behind schedule? Based on what the radar is showing it looks like it will be at least 4:00 before it gets here, if it gets here at all. I've got W winds for tomorrow and highs in the 50's, so this one is going to move in and move right back out after striking a glancing blow if it gets here at all. Had somebody told me yesterday that it was going to be in the 60's today instead of the low 40's (which is what they were saying) I'd have gotten my workers over here and we could have gotten something done on the new greenhouse.

[jasons]

Well, the bad news is that I was trudging outside again tonight to wrap my majesty and pygmy date palms.

The good news is that they are still alive....and I was trudging outside again tonight to wrap my majesty and pygmy date palms.

Last time until next year :-) Good luck to my fellow Texans.

[Erik]

Jason,

amen to that. I'll get down to 8 F tonight with 5-10" of snow, then to an unbelievable -4 F Thursday. But, I should be able to unwrap palms this weekend as nice weather all next week. --Erik

[mjff]

14F tonight, 12F tomorrow, and 17F Friday a.m. Back into the 70's this weekend. Check that, now 60's this weekend. I love how all of a sudden most of the numbers on this forecast have been reduced by 10 degrees from where they were at 3:30 this afternoon. What exactly do they think I'm going to do about it at this point with the wind howling out of the north at 25-35 mph and the temperature plummeting? What a bunch of horses behinds. Luckily I anticipated this stunt on the NWS's part and covered everything back up that I had covered last week while it was nice this afternoon. What a waste of tax dollars the NWS is.

[war_eagle]

Here's my forecast from NWS. Freezing rain and low 20s again?! Really?! 28 degrees at 3pm, 24 degrees with 20-30 mph wind over night tonight. At least the highs will be well above freezing, I guess. It's hard to imagine that we in Houston are now just happy to have HIGHs above freezing.

Today: Rain likely before 2pm, then a chance of freezing rain between 2pm and 5pm. Cloudy, with a temperature falling to around 28 by 3pm. Wind chill values between 15 and 25. Breezy, with a north wind between 10 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Little or no ice accumulation expected.

Tonight: Cloudy, then gradually becoming partly cloudy, with a low around 24. Wind chill values between 10 and 15. Blustery, with a north wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.

Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 44. Wind chill values between 10 and 20. North wind between 10 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.

Thursday Night: Clear, with a low around 24. Wind chill values between 15 and 20. North wind around 5 mph.

Friday: Sunny, with a high near 52. North wind around 5 mph.

Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 29.

[Erik]

Snowing hard here now. A few hours ago we set an all-time annual snowfall record (26" or 66 cm) --and all in the past week and a half.

Tomorrow we will set a daily record low of -7 oF (-21 oC).

All palms are covered, but only things like Butia, Chamaerops, Sabal mexicana have electric heat. Who knew needle palms would have to be plugged in at 35 oN latitude ?!? --Erik

[Erik]

Well, I was way too optimistic, as the weather headlines today make clear. There was, "Oklahoma colder than the south pole this morning" and the tabulation of records on weather underground (http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html).

How cold did it get in Texas this morning? A record-setting -22 oF (-30 oC) in Bixby, OK, this morning. --Erik

[mjff]

Well, I was way too optimistic, as the weather headlines today make clear. There was, "Oklahoma colder than the south pole this morning" and the tabulation of records on weather underground (http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html).

How cold did it get in Texas this morning? A record-setting -22 oF (-30 oC) in Bixby, OK, this morning. --Erik

Happily they blew it on our forecast again. Said 10F last night, I only got to 14F. They are saying 15F tomorrow morning.

[Ed in Houston]

Eric, It is insanely cold in Oklahoma, with one station reporting -31 and feet of snow in some locations! In SE Houston it was +27 this morning with +26 predicted for tonight. Must be lots of records being set. I think there is a glacier forming starting at about Dallas and going north for thousands of miles.

Ed in SE Houston

[Erik]

Ed,

you are right. I just cannot believe it. I woke up early and saw, "-21 F" on my laptop (photo below) and ran outside in my pajamas (seriously) and saw +8 F in the insulated, heated palm hut. Massive warm-up today brought us to a balmy +25 F, but down cold again tonight. We will set a record for the date, but not an all-time record cold: that was set today, never to be touched. --Erik

[war_eagle]

Erik, what kind of pajamas were you wearing?! I wouldn't run out into +40F degrees in my pjs, much less NEGATIVE 21F! That is insane! I hope you're palms come through okay.

[Erik]

Not thick enough! I had never experienced even 0 oF in my life, even when on skiing trips, and so had no experience.

I'll unwrap palms this weekend to see if there are any survivors. I talked on the phone last night with someone who has been growing palms around here for decades. We agreed: time to look for jobs in Texas. Let me know who is hiring!

[mjff]

Not thick enough! I had never experienced even 0 oF in my life, even when on skiing trips, and so had no experience.

I'll unwrap palms this weekend to see if there are any survivors. I talked on the phone last night with someone who has been growing palms around here for decades. We agreed: time to look for jobs in Texas. Let me know who is hiring!

You're crazy. At -21F (and I don't even want to think about the windchill) exposed flesh freezes almost instantly. A space suit would have been a better choice.

What kind of job are you looking for?

[spockvr6]

You're crazy. At -21F (and I don't even want to think about the windchill) exposed flesh freezes almost instantly.

I am from Maine originally and the coldest I personally experienced was -30F. I dont recall the windchill but the winds were howling pretty good, and I think it was -60 or -70F.

I recall my face not feeling so good and my nostrils freezing closed, but other than that it was wonderful! LOL

There are no palms in Maine