W. filifera in Albuquerque

[Desert DAC]

10 hours ago, MSX said:

I made a spreadsheet based on METAR aviation weather report data for the past 30 years, and it turns out that Albuquerque (the airport) is in zone 8a. Is there any difference between the airport area and palmy locations of the expansive ABQ metropolitan area (Rio Rancho, for example)?

Good work! I did a similar spreadsheet, but tracking 10, 20, 30 year periods for several stations including NMSU, ABQ, Santa Fe, Austin, and a couple others. I'll need to post it once I get a chance. 

[jwitt]

Rio Rancho #2 comes in at 8f

Corrales station has some location issues thru the years and for some time was within mere blocks of the RR2 station up on the escarpment and not by the river where it is now and was previously.

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by jwitt

[Desert DAC]

13 hours ago, jwitt said:

Rio Rancho #2 comes in at 8f

Corrales station has some location issues thru the years and for some time was within mere blocks of the RR2 station up on the escarpment and not by the river where it is now and was previously.

Thanks, these charts of various stations are helpful for a snapshot that's summarized. I've used MesoWest and NOAA data when recent 2 years, which are more of a manual exercise!

With USDA cold hardiness zones, it's necessary to have a corresponding, consecutive 30 year (or more) period for a weather station at one location, with a high data quality at least 70% (2/3) of complete observations. Zones are nothing remotely about 1 year or even 10 years, spotty records, etc. Otherwise it's about inferences (helpful if based on consistency & fact, but still not a known) or worse, perceptions. (most of what I heard for 21 years in ABQ, "arcticists" who act like ABQ is Denver with adobe)

Given most woody garden plants should live out their lifespan of 30+ years or tree lifespans of 50-100+ years, a year or ten aren't helpful. As a landscape architect for 30-ish years, I went for the long game, unlike a home gardener or hobbyist which is also fine but different goals.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Desert DAC

[jwitt]

I moved to Corrales in 1976. I currently live in Corrales Heights.  I can provide long-term data from about 5 miles upstream showing an average of 1.8 days on an annual average at or below 0f.  

The closest your going to get to Corrales near the river.

[jwitt]

1 hour ago, jwitt said:

I moved to Corrales in 1976. I currently live in Corrales Heights.  I can provide long-term data from about 5 miles upstream showing an average of 1.8 days on an annual average at or below 0f.  

The closest your going to get to Corrales near the river.

I believe the NWS moved the Bernalillo station to Corrales and then within Corrales to get a better handle of the westside metro.  Which, for the most part, did not exist 30 years ago.  At least the dates line up with the creation and movement of stations(Bernalillo stopped/Corrales started same year1982).  Rio Rancho started(1991) about when the Corrales station returned to the river(for a while). 

I worked at a nursery in Corrales(green acres) in 79-82 and the owner would not even allow talk about palms and such(this was the decade of -20f(multiple times) in the valley1971/1978)). That is where the Denver imprint came from.  The local nurseryman! 

Meanwhile,  me and the greenhouse manager watched her neighbor's unprotected trachy grow in the far north valley thru the late 70's/early 80's.  A time of double digits below zero!

 

 

[SailorBold]

It's a nightmare for people who love palms.. lol..

Pouring over my data from my weather station I think my overall monthly averages are higher than the RR2 station for Dec- feb.. I've run a quick pencil to it and they range from 28-34.. with december being the coldest..my station mostly lines up with another a street over that has a fan assisted thermometer.. pretty mild considering some of the data from other locales putting averages down to 22f for lows.  im thinking my average highs are even in the solid 50s for highs..  which is 10 degrees higher than other data coming from other areas.. the summer data is about the same.. my average june/July high temps are at 96-97f.  

Overall it doesn't matter with winter blasts.. which you can bet on 1-3 a year.

 

5f to palm trees.....

 

[jwitt]

1 hour ago, SailorBold said:

It's a nightmare for people who love palms.. lol..

Pouring over my data from my weather station I think my overall monthly averages are higher than the RR2 station for Dec- feb.. I've run a quick pencil to it and they range from 28-34.. with december being the coldest..my station mostly lines up with another a street over that has a fan assisted thermometer.. pretty mild considering some of the data from other locales putting averages down to 22f for lows.  im thinking my average highs are even in the solid 50s for highs..  which is 10 degrees higher than other data coming from other areas.. the summer data is about the same.. my average june/July high temps are at 96-97f.  

Overall it doesn't matter with winter blasts.. which you can bet on 1-3 a year.

 

5f to palm trees.....

 

Now move your station on the very edge of a 200' escarpment, with a clear view of Sandia/Truchas peaks and things make sense. 

Every year is a crapshoot in my yard and and I have outlived any palm I have ever grown!

The pin, is the station

Edited December 22, 2022 by jwitt

[SailorBold]

On 12/20/2022 at 1:09 PM, jwitt said:

As far as Rio Rancho #2(which is 23 houses away from my house) and the Corrales station, the average daily highs are substantially higher than the airport station and average in the low 50's in the coldest time of year(now).  The lows in Corrales are lower than the airport and Rio Rancho within a degree or two of the airport,  for the most part.   

Now throw in a nearly 11,000' mountain that blocks the palm killing east wind in RR/Corrales,  and possibilities open up. 

This part of the metro has really only been populated as of late and climate is not fully understood.

At the end of the day, this is a place you can liftoff and lan a balloon in the same spot, second highest climate variability of US cities, and wait for it......second highest UHI in the US. 

This part of the metro, is untested and unknown for the most part.

Case in point with this current arctic blast.. 1 hour east its 7f !

[jwitt]

6 hours ago, SailorBold said:

Case in point with this current arctic blast.. 1 hour east its 7f !

Let me do a palm killing setup.......

Current situation with the cold air coming down to the east along the plains(high pressure).  Now at the same time imagine a pacific storm(low pressure) coming in from the west.  This is what I term our palm killer.  East winds blowing 90mph at Tramway,  45 at San Mateo, 30 at Edith, and 10 to 15 at Corrales.  Even a bit less in RR.  This the Sandia blocking I am really referring to.  Full on blizzard in the heights, and possibly partly sunny in RR. These are truly the setup for our worst events. 

Back to today.,.............

Big warmup coming next week...........

Warm before the storm?

Usually about ten days from winter storms to affect the mainland coming from Hawaii......

well, about ten days ago Hawaii just so happened to have some coastal issues from the storm rolling across the N Pacific causing surf not seen in some years. 

Yesterday, huge flight disruption across the islands. Really unprecedented. Due to a Kona storm. .........

I have never seen snow on Mauna Kea this far down. 

Eyes on!

Edited December 22, 2022 by jwitt
Corrected wording

[MSX]

On 12/21/2022 at 4:19 AM, jwitt said:

ABQ airport= zone 8a

My house(Rio Rancho)=zone 7b

Corrales palms=zone 6b

But the airport has the lower average high daily maximum temperature.  Multiple degrees....

In fact, my Rio Rancho location average high is more in tune with TorC/Alamogordo than ABQ.  On average. 

So yes, there is a difference between the airport and the westside. 

I'm 23 houses from the RR station and less than 2 miles from the Corrales station(a full zone in under 2 miles!)

And after all that, there are parts of ABQ that are zone 8b or right on the edge. But no long term palms including trachies in this "warmer" zone.

The difference between the airport and the westside of ABQ is clearly visible from these SUHI intensity images (Yale Center for Earth Observation). The dark orange zones hotspots in the nighttime of the last coldest winter must be the parts of ABQ that are zone 8b (1-2 degrees warmer than the airport) (downtown, eastside?). The eastern and the highest elevated parts of the city seem to be one of the warmest too during the winter night but they are the coldest in the daytime.

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by MSX

[Desert DAC]

On 12/22/2022 at 8:10 AM, SailorBold said:

Case in point with this current arctic blast.. 1 hour east its 7f !

1 hour east of ABQ is another ecoregion and climate zone, and that's consistent whether natural / cultivated vegetation indicators, or long-term averages, extremes, or most daily temps. Even Tijeras is quite different in all that from my old house east of Tramway / I-40. Heck, Oklahoma City (Norman) where I lived in college is zone 7a-b like much of ABQ, but gets far more up-down extremes plus another factor many forget - consecutive hours and days <32F. Take that over a 30 year period, and you have climate differences.

I'll use a couple geographer terms for climate regimes that relate to growing plants. East is microthermal (daily mean of coldest month averages <32F). West is mesothermal (daily mean of coldest month averages >32F). The occasional variability of that, mostly the mesothermal climate west to get a <32F month or a colder extreme low, is tricky for hardy palms. Especially since Wash. filifera isn't just a mesothermal regime tree, it's a mesothermal / subtropical regime tree. (ABQ is best described as having mesothermal / warm-temperate regime) The natural and cultivated plant correlations are amazing from one regime to another regime. Of course, these are general categories that are further delineated into zones. 

Merriam hit on some of this in the 1880's with his life zone system (for crops), but he missed many factors and also had little data.  Not that terms aren't confusing, too, starting with "temperate", but that's a minor detail since most people keep forgetting time periods for data quality matter much.

For some in arid and semi-arid places:

Microthermal - Denver, Santa Fe, Taos, Edgewood, Grants, etc. (I didn't divide microthermal into its variations)

Mesothermal / Warm-Temperate - ABQ, San Felipe, Socorro, T or C, Las Cruces, El Paso, Las Vegas NV

Mesothermal / Subtropical - Presidio TX, Tucson, Phoenix, Palm Springs, etc.

[Desert DAC]

4 hours ago, MSX said:

The difference between the airport and the westside of ABQ is clearly visible from these SUHI intensity images (Yale Center for Earth Observation). The dark orange zones hotspots in the nighttime of the last coldest winter must be the parts of ABQ that are zone 8b (1-2 degrees warmer than the airport) (downtown, eastside?). The eastern and the highest elevated parts of the city seem to be one of the warmest too during the winter night but they are the coldest in the daytime.

 

Thanks for this, excellent graphics and more clues. I need to study it more, plus try it on other cities with much more prominent heat islands than ABQ. (El Paso, Phoenix, etc.)

Computer models and even mapping / graphing are iffy to me without enough data points, for long enough time, to verify or state facts. Not to mention horridly inaccurate sites like Climate Central, which appears to have fed some erroneous data into making their maps in certain places' heat islands or climate change forecasts. One can see much driving around at night with a car thermometer, or mountain biking / hiking in shorts in a ABQ or warmer winter place.

[jwitt]

9 hours ago, MSX said:

The difference between the airport and the westside of ABQ is clearly visible from these SUHI intensity images (Yale Center for Earth Observation). The dark orange zones hotspots in the nighttime of the last coldest winter must be the parts of ABQ that are zone 8b (1-2 degrees warmer than the airport) (downtown, eastside?). The eastern and the highest elevated parts of the city seem to be one of the warmest too during the winter night but they are the coldest in the daytime.

 

Those Maps show the cold air drainage into the Rio Grande valley thru the arroyos on the westside.  Montoya, Calabacitas, Black Montano are the big ones . Canyons of cold air. Few know about this.

In the valley from about Montano to just past the zoo are a 1/2 zone increase due to no large arroyos and it shows on these maps 

This is where the UHI is shown, in the valley, north to south.  Quite large in a very short distance(under 10 miles).  

I think this knowledge is why the NWS kept moving the stations.  Many were under the impression the local drainage(climate) was affected mostly by the mountains to the east and north. Not the case. 

 

[jwitt]

An argument for mass and canopy.

12/29/22

[SailorBold]

On 12/22/2022 at 3:01 PM, jwitt said:

Let me do a palm killing setup.......

Current situation with the cold air coming down to the east along the plains(high pressure).  Now at the same time imagine a pacific storm(low pressure) coming in from the west.  This is what I term our palm killer.  East winds blowing 90mph at Tramway,  45 at San Mateo, 30 at Edith, and 10 to 15 at Corrales.  Even a bit less in RR.  This the Sandia blocking I am really referring to.  Full on blizzard in the heights, and possibly partly sunny in RR. These are truly the setup for our worst events. 

Back to today.,.............

Big warmup coming next week...........

Warm before the storm?

Usually about ten days from winter storms to affect the mainland coming from Hawaii......

well, about ten days ago Hawaii just so happened to have some coastal issues from the storm rolling across the N Pacific causing surf not seen in some years. 

Yesterday, huge flight disruption across the islands. Really unprecedented. Due to a Kona storm. .........

I have never seen snow on Mauna Kea this far down. 

Eyes on!

Bomb Cyclone is next?  

[jwitt]

1 hour ago, SailorBold said:

Bomb Cyclone is next?  

I hope not.  With no arctic air in the plains, I sleep sound.  

Been very wet in California and PHX tho.  Even here.