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13 January 2013, California Freeze -- How Low did U Go?


DoomsDave

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Awoke this morning to the kitty cat burrowed under the covers, snug and comfy in a cold house.

Outside, it got down to 32 F in the upper part of my yard, and 28.6 in the lower part.

Cold, but no damage. The tender stuff had been covered up.

How about the rest of you?

Let's keep our forum fun and friendly.

Any data in this post is provided 'as is' and in no event shall I be liable for any damages, including, without limitation, damages resulting from accuracy or lack thereof, insult, or lost profits or revenue, claims by third parties or for other similar costs, or any special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of my opinion or the use of this data. The accuracy or reliability of the data is not guaranteed or warranted in any way and I disclaim liability of any kind whatsoever, including, without limitation, liability for quality, performance, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose arising out of the use, or inability to use my data. Other terms may apply.

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31.3f for 7 hours last night. I covered what I could and set up a fan on what I couldn't. No visible damage from last night that I can see....yet. Still got a few more nights to go.

"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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24f for a few hours. definitely expecting some damage to my majesty, pygmy date, kentia, veitchia and caryota lol if the last 2 survive i will be very impressed.

- Eric Arneson

lan-backyard-design-copy1.jpg

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Eric:

if your Veitchia makes it, I'll suspect witchcraft . . . :)

Let's keep our forum fun and friendly.

Any data in this post is provided 'as is' and in no event shall I be liable for any damages, including, without limitation, damages resulting from accuracy or lack thereof, insult, or lost profits or revenue, claims by third parties or for other similar costs, or any special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of my opinion or the use of this data. The accuracy or reliability of the data is not guaranteed or warranted in any way and I disclaim liability of any kind whatsoever, including, without limitation, liability for quality, performance, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose arising out of the use, or inability to use my data. Other terms may apply.

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Im looking at the little 4 leaf seedling right now and it looks fine. I put the pot in a radio flyer wagon which has super micro climate powers :P

- Eric Arneson

lan-backyard-design-copy1.jpg

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Low temperature of 34F last night. Also, up against the house, the temp only dropped to 40F.

When I walked around my property this morning, I only see some minor cold damage.

Spotting on Pritchardia and Veitchia so far.

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23F. Most worried about my Majesty, Kentias and Kings. I had propane going outside so I think they will pull though but I expect damage

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31.5 here in my yard. No visible damage to palms but there will be to heliconia, bananas, possibly plumeria, which still has a full canopy of green leaves. Damage almost always takes a few days to show up on palms and many other plants. The forecast is for the same temperature tonight.

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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Elegant Homes and Gardens

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Friday night/Sat morning reached 24ºF with aloe vera showing damage on some leaves (good temp indicator plant as damage usually begins at 25ºF). Brought them inside for the remainder of the arctic outbreak. Saturday night/sunday morning went below 32ºF at 8pm, reaching 23ºF for morning low. Aloe arborescens in the ground with flowering spikes pushing up is undamaged ( usually takes a hit ≈22ºF). Coldest since January 2007 when I reached 22ºF. Only Brahea nitida, Livistona decipiens, Cham microspadix, and W. robusta are near damaging temps but are usually good to 20ºF. No major damage anticipated though for these or any other palm plantings. I've got a second year in the ground Tipuana tipu that will be interesting to see what developes. One more chilly night to go. Good luck to all.

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27F. My D baronii and Kings are burned. Most tender palms I could cover look ok, I'm expecting some burn to show up later. 3 D decipiens in coldest locations of front yard look fine with no cover. "Warmest" city in Northern Ca. this morning? San Francisco at 38F.

Glenn

Modesto, California

 

Sunset Zone 14   USDA 9b

 

Low Temp. 19F/-7C 12-20-1990         

 

High Temp. 111F/43C 07-23-2006

 

Annual Average Precipitation 13.12 inches/yr.

 

             

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35.6 in the coldest part of the yard at ground level. No noticeable damage to palms, although the heliconias, some water plants, and cordylines are a bit droopy.

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Pretty rough last two nights here with official lows of 28 and 26. Lots of ice all over for hours.

Considerablef browning already on Archontophoenix (getting too big to cover) and probably lost some seedlings that didn't get enough protection.

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34.3 for the lowest this morning. I went to bed at 11pm and it was 36. I only dropped 1.7 degrees all night. No frost on all cold day so far. Everything looks good. 2 more days an then some rewarding weather!

Grateful to have what I have, Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis!

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Yikes, just saw tonight's weather forecast and they are saying a record 25F for San Jose, Ca (record was 27F) for tonight. WeatherUnderground is forecasting about the same for our area. More lows for the next few days and sounds like the same for most Californians.

I watered a few days ago and it rained the other night. Should we be watering again at some point?

Last year one of the palm nurseries in our area took a big hit to their kings especially. Sounds like this is going to be a really tough week for many. We have mules, a butia and trachy so curious to see how these mid-20s affect them.

Since moving to the Bay Area I think this will be the coldest I recall.

Edited by WestCoastGal

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

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Worst for me so far this cold snap has been 33f. Near the house my lowest has been 40f. Have had frost only on the grass inside my property line. So far only minor damage to a couple of plants. In particular, one plumeria that I had covered is showing some blackening on a couple leaves.

Getting really tired of this cold.

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Yikes, just saw tonight's weather forecast and they are saying a record 25F for San Jose, Ca (record was 27F) for tonight. WeatherUnderground is forecasting about the same for our area. More lows for the next few days and sounds like the same for most Californians.

I watered a few days ago and it rained the other night. Should we be watering again at some point?

Last year one of the palm nurseries in our area took a big hit to their kings especially. Sounds like this is going to be a really tough week for many. We have mules, a butia and trachy so curious to see how these mid-20s affect them.

Since moving to the Bay Area I think this will be the coldest I recall.

Those palms won't skip a beat in this cold spell unless it goes into the teens and we know that won't happen. Also, WeatherUnderground is notoriously way off with their low temperature predictions in the South Bay. They predicted 27F last night in Los Altos and the actual was 31F. Tonight they have me at 25F. That's stupid. Intellicast has me at 31F and Accuweather at 30F and several other sources are similar.

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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20°F was the low at 6am sat jan 12 inside my dad's greenhouse in vista....damaged all plants inside....african tulip trees looking bad, orchids are toughing it out right now.

Edited by tropicalb
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This is the forecast from my old zip code in Alaska. We're colder than Alaska!!!

Ahh, I remember the 0% humidity and 5 hours of daylight...

629512C6-EFCE-4366-9C52-8BA17EBB1C6B-474

Grateful to have what I have, Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis!

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With my area having mountains and valleys I expect some variation throughout my city on the temps and some sort of average arrived at for the forecasted low. I use WUnderground primarily for current temps and wind info. We like to do a comparison between WUndergound, Accuweather and WeatherChannel and it's interesting to see the differences. For temps right now (10:42 pm) WUnderground (my closest station) was 35.3, Accuweather at 34, and WeatherChannel at 33. The first two have forecasted the low for 25, and WC higher at 27. I know WUnderground uses NOAA's National Digital Forecast Database for their predictions, not sure about the source of the other two.

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

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20°F was the low at 6am sat jan 12 inside my dad's greenhouse in vista....damaged all plants inside....african tulip trees looking bad, orchids are toughing it out right now.

Always surprising much cold air can collect in a low basin even down at San Diego County's latitude. I saw a low of 22F for a station in Escondido's flatland while the hills around it were above freezing. Up north here some Sac valley flatland locations had lower readings my place at 1900' el. A station near Orland reached 17F. It seems the central coast region is relatively a little less affected. Paso Robles Airport hit 26F on Jan 13, while on the same date in 2007, 12F was the low. That 12F low was preceded by 28F, 24F, 17F mornings with balmy 14F, 16F, 16F, 24F, 19F, 20F, 22F, 22F, 21F, 21F, 25F, 25F, and 30F lows before pulling out of it on the 27th of Jan 2007. Ouch!

post-265-0-72428400-1358149534_thumb.jpg

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20°F was the low at 6am sat jan 12 inside my dad's greenhouse in vista....damaged all plants inside....african tulip trees looking bad, orchids are toughing it out right now.

Always surprising much cold air can collect in a low basin even down at San Diego County's latitude. I saw a low of 22F for a station in Escondido's flatland while the hills around it were above freezing. Up north here some Sac valley flatland locations had lower readings my place at 1900' el. A station near Orland reached 17F. It seems the central coast region is relatively a little less affected. Paso Robles Airport hit 26F on Jan 13, while on the same date in 2007, 12F was the low. That 12F low was preceded by 28F, 24F, 17F mornings with balmy 14F, 16F, 16F, 24F, 19F, 20F, 22F, 22F, 21F, 21F, 25F, 25F, and 30F lows before pulling out of it on the 27th of Jan 2007. Ouch!

What was your low last night up there in Paradise? Looks like 28.5ish?

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Well it's 7:50 am and temps are finally heading up But still below freezing (26.2F). Night didn't start out that bad, in fact temps were climbing with some wind blowing, until around 12:30ish (35.4) when the wind pretty much died and the subsequent drops in temps kept coming. Coldest I saw was 25.4 at 6:14 am. WUnderground had predicted 25 for us, so I'd say they were pretty accurate this time around. Hard to believe we left the Midwest for this.

So temps in the 32 range from midnight on until....quite a number of hours..... only 29F now at 8:12 and the sun's been out since dawn.

To think they raised us recently from a Zone 9a to a Zone 9b. I don't think so. We've been lower historically and I think 9a is more useful to people planting things.

Edited by WestCoastGal

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

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It stayed above freezing here as Intellicast predicted. I knew WeatherUnderground's forecast numbers were way off for nearly all South Bay localities as they often are. They were off by seven degrees for me. Anyhow, the yard looks great thankfully, with heliconia, hibiscus, plumeria, ginger, etc. and all my palms untouched by this winter so far. A nice warm-up is coming this week.

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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West Coast Gal, I know what you mean about the potentially disastrous effects of an optimistic USDA zone reclassification. On the good side, though, its ten-year average of yearly lowest temp allows me to anticipate typical lows each year, so I can deduce what will have a chance to survive the worst temps that get thrown at me. So I plant solid 9a stuff that handles my yearly 23-24 degree lowest temp, so that they are big enough and hard enough to make it through the teens that show up every 6-8 years.. For me, this means the tougher livistonas and lots of braheas and trithrinax and jubaeas. So I only have to worry about my cosmetically 9b palms (e.g. parajubaeas) in the cold years. Of course all bets are off when it drops to 14 for 3 nights like it did in cruel 2007. But if the USDA called me 8a because of that, I wouldn't ever have planted much of anything but trachys and sabal minors...and I can look out now and see the 8 foot butia x syagrus that survived 2007 as a 3-foot seedling.

Jon T-Central CA coastal valley foothills-9A

Forever seeking juania australis...

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My parents say it got down to 25 Degrees in Santa Barbara. In 2007 it hit 23 there. So much for being a 10a as all the zone maps put us in. Most of my palms were put in the garage so they should be ok but there will probabbly be no avocados this year yet again... and some succulents will probabbly die as well. I wanted to down size the number of potted plants but not this way.

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24f for a few hours. definitely expecting some damage to my majesty, pygmy date, kentia, veitchia and caryota lol if the last 2 survive i will be very impressed.

Are you measuring in Healdsburg? Are you on a slope or valley floor? I've been surprised by reading about relatively mild lows from the area around there vs. Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, and Petaluma.

Jason Dewees

Inner Sunset District

San Francisco, California

Sunset zone 17

USDA zone 10a

21 inches / 530mm annual rainfall, mostly October to April

Humidity averages 60 to 85 percent year-round.

Summer: 67F/55F | 19C/12C

Winter: 56F/44F | 13C/6C

40-year extremes: 96F/26F | 35.5C/-3.8C

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20°F was the low at 6am sat jan 12 inside my dad's greenhouse in vista....damaged all plants inside....african tulip trees looking bad, orchids are toughing it out right now.

Always surprising much cold air can collect in a low basin even down at San Diego County's latitude. I saw a low of 22F for a station in Escondido's flatland while the hills around it were above freezing. Up north here some Sac valley flatland locations had lower readings my place at 1900' el. A station near Orland reached 17F. It seems the central coast region is relatively a little less affected. Paso Robles Airport hit 26F on Jan 13, while on the same date in 2007, 12F was the low. That 12F low was preceded by 28F, 24F, 17F mornings with balmy 14F, 16F, 16F, 24F, 19F, 20F, 22F, 22F, 21F, 21F, 25F, 25F, and 30F lows before pulling out of it on the 27th of Jan 2007. Ouch!

What was your low last night up there in Paradise? Looks like 28.5ish?

Monday morning low of 27ºF in Rough and Ready between Grass Valley and Marysville. Paradise is in the foothills north of me near Chico and is relatively one of the "mildest" spots that far north. It has a gradually sloping, overall south facing aspect with north-south axis ravine/canyons, that get a full east to west sun sweep, without any overly steep walls or north faces that would create dark, cold zones. It also has Cohasset and Doe Mill Ridges to the north which are high enough to temper some of the north winds. Canyons/ridges that run east to west such as the Yuba or American Rivers get that low sun-angle shadow off of north slopes that never see sun/heating in the winter. These watersheds tend to have more lingering cold lurking around in them.

The desert areas like Phoenix seemed to be more in the path of the cold jetstream and have a couple more cold mornings in store. Some parts of Las Vegas reached 17ºF and was only 34ºF at noon today. The Strip benefited from the urban heat island and didn't get that cold but I would guess the casinos have enough money if they need to replace a Canary or Washies or Pygmy Dates or whatever. :bemused: ................ :lol:

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20°F was the low at 6am sat jan 12 inside my dad's greenhouse in vista....damaged all plants inside....african tulip trees looking bad, orchids are toughing it out right now.

Always surprising much cold air can collect in a low basin even down at San Diego County's latitude. I saw a low of 22F for a station in Escondido's flatland while the hills around it were above freezing. Up north here some Sac valley flatland locations had lower readings my place at 1900' el. A station near Orland reached 17F. It seems the central coast region is relatively a little less affected. Paso Robles Airport hit 26F on Jan 13, while on the same date in 2007, 12F was the low. That 12F low was preceded by 28F, 24F, 17F mornings with balmy 14F, 16F, 16F, 24F, 19F, 20F, 22F, 22F, 21F, 21F, 25F, 25F, and 30F lows before pulling out of it on the 27th of Jan 2007. Ouch!

What was your low last night up there in Paradise? Looks like 28.5ish?

Ooops, duplicate post

Edited by monkeyranch
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Wind shut off all the sudden last night at around 4AM. That allowed it to drop from 34 to 26 within a matter of minutes.. ugh. Took me off guard.

So it was 32, 25, 23, 26, (currently 36F @ 23:11). My 9 ft Hibiscus trees look sad. Hopefully they will recover

Edited by enigma99
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I think monkeyranch is accurate in his assessment of this anomalous cold spell: Man, did we (Atascadero) dodge a bullet in this year! On the central coast it was MUCH milder than 2007 (23 was my minimum here yesterday, where it dropped to 14 back in 2007!); Santa Barbara airport, however, was 27 yesterday, the coldest since '07; and downtown LA was 34, its coldest since the deep freeze of 1990! This advective cold here in the Paso Robles area simply brought our typical yearly 9a low, the coldest since...well, last year. I feel empathy for the palm-lovers who got a gut-wrenching two-zone cruel surprise this year.

Jon T-Central CA coastal valley foothills-9A

Forever seeking juania australis...

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