Southern Hemisphere Growing Season 21/22

[Tyrone]

3 hours ago, cbmnz said:

Overnight low was 21.4C, so that record for my station is smashed. Not pleasant with no A/C, I'd be fine with that being a once off but got 21C overnght lows forecast for later in the week. Madness.

Well you have warmer mins than my area then. I’ve never recorded anything as warm as 20C for a min down here. Last night we were forecast a 21C min but it got down to 19C, thankfully. But after a 43.5C day you’d expect a possible high minimum record. Didn’t happen though. Heavy dew this morning too. Going for 31C today. Much more manageable. 

[Tyrone]

This is the Chatham Island Nikau I was drenching every ten minutes for 3hrs. I think it came through well considering. There were some burn marks from a previous hot spell on the lower frond. Most of the damage on the Hedychiums was from too much water last year. We ended up with 1230mm for the year. The white patches on them were from yesterday’s heat. Officially it got to 44.2C at the airport but I doubt we got that high here. It always tracks a little higher in temp and lower in humidity at the airport.

[Tyrone]

This is the same group of plants near the house I was trying to stop from incinerating. I also have a new area of Archontophoenix and Ravenea rivularis planted out just over two weeks ago. The Archontophoenix came out of the shadehouse so I expected damage. All in all they went ok. 

The sun was just ferocious but today is cooler more humid and cloudier and tonight a few mms of rain which will be wonderful. Hopefully it will put the huge fire in Denmark out too. 

It was so hot yesterday that spiders that were living in the eaves of the house were just getting out quick on threads of web and then many have died on the ground where they fell. Unbelievable. I hope we don’t see that again for a good while. 

[PalmCode]

1 hour ago, Tyrone said:

This is the Chatham Island Nikau I was drenching every ten minutes for 3hrs. I think it came through well considering. There were some burn marks from a previous hot spell on the lower frond. Most of the damage on the Hedychiums was from too much water last year. We ended up with 1230mm for the year. The white patches on them were from yesterday’s heat. Officially it got to 44.2C at the airport but I doubt we got that high here. It always tracks a little higher in temp and lower in humidity at the airport.

It's looking great considering those extreme temperatures. Cooling it down with water must have really helped it...My Chathams are looking green this summer not much burn so far.

Edited February 6, 2022 by PalmCode

[PalmCode]

5 hours ago, cbmnz said:

Overnight low was 21.4C, so that record for my station is smashed. Not pleasant with no A/C, I'd be fine with that being a once off but got 21C overnght lows forecast for later in the week. Madness.

Yeah my forecast looks to be similar. Overnight lows like this all week. 

[Tyrone]

It’s blowing a gale from the west now with patchy rain.. it’s freezing out there.  It’s going to be 20C tomorrow with rain which is more along the lines of summer in the Chatham Islands which my nikaus will just love. 

[sandgroper]

Was a lovely cool night last night, much more pleasant to sleep. Today is also much cooler, I think the maximum is only supposed to reach 24c which is a great change from the destructive plant killing temps we've been having. Looks as though the coming week is quite pleasant too with temps around the high twenties to low thirties, much more comfortable.

[Tyrone]

The gale force winds have been relentless. There’s debris all over the roads in places. Can’t wait for the low to nick off east and give us a break. 

[sandgroper]

34 minutes ago, Tyrone said:

The gale force winds have been relentless. There’s debris all over the roads in places. Can’t wait for the low to nick off east and give us a break. 

We certainly live in an entertaining corner of the world!

[Tyrone]

The 44.2C we had on Saturday was almost at the record of 44.8C recorded on the 8th Feb 1933. So hopefully we don’t see temps that high for a very very long time. Damage is starting to really show up on things that were under canopy but were just under a break in the canopy for too long at the wrong time. A lot of my Archontophoenix, Howeas and even one of my protected Hedyscepe have been burnt. All should recover but it’s disappointing. 

So in the last 3 years, we’ve had mega frost, a prolonged flooding and wet weather which killed things and now fire from the sun. I’m hoping to catch a break from this sort of thing from now on for a while. 

[cbmnz]

Just as farms were turning to dust and scrub fires were starting to break out , we got 75mm of perfect soaking rain over 30 hours, none so heavy as to run off.  Now have 5 days of 20C or 21C overnight lows forecast (with 27 to 29C highs)  but guess that is a small price to pay.  Palms and Bananas will love it. 

[Tyrone]

We had a 8.3C min last night. I thought summer had packed up and left. 

Saturday max 43.5C then a few days later 8.3C min. Schizo weather. More normal weather coming. Teens at night and mid twenties in the day with a decent amount of humidity. 

[greysrigging]

You know how we are all grizzling about this 'monsoonal break' dry spell ?

Well here is what they look like back to 1941 for our two wettest wet season months.

No, I'm not counting March as many years the wet buggers off mid month....

Consecutive days of zero recorded rain in Jan and Feb.

January:-

2018 - 8 days

2016 - 8 days

2012 - 10 days

1992 - 8 days

1960 - 7 days

1951 - 7 days

1950 - 7 days

1948 - 10 days.

February:-

2020 - 7 days

2019 - 8 days

1979 - 9 days

1973 - 10 days

1964 - 10 days

1942 - 8 days

And a more than honourable mention to Jan-Feb 1959 with 12 consecutive days rainless.

There are lots of other examples of 5 and 6 day dry spells in the last 80 years.

Be that as it may, I'm looking at 7 rainless days here at Leanyer Heights and may have to resort to the sprinklers tomorrow.

44

 

3 Comments

[Tyrone]

On 2/6/2022 at 8:04 AM, Tyrone said:

This is the Chatham Island Nikau I was drenching every ten minutes for 3hrs. I think it came through well considering. There were some burn marks from a previous hot spell on the lower frond. Most of the damage on the Hedychiums was from too much water last year. We ended up with 1230mm for the year. The white patches on them were from yesterday’s heat. Officially it got to 44.2C at the airport but I doubt we got that high here. It always tracks a little higher in temp and lower in humidity at the airport.

I thought this Chatham would have decided to stall after its brush with being burnt alive. But I was just giving it a splash with the hose this morning and I can see the marks where the spear has been growing at night, every night. I suppose you could call them growth marks and it’s growing at about 12mm of spear every night. The heat didn’t bother it at all. The spear has grown about 6 inches since the 43.5C max two weeks ago. 

We are entering a good time of year for growth now. Got on average, mid teens at night, mid twenties during the day, good humidity but just a bit low on rainfall. It looks like that may return a bit next week and there are possibilities of some decent falls and thunderstorms next weekend. March can be warmer than anything in summer here, so a bit of rain humidity and warmth boosts things along. 

[Tyrone]

Well this last week has not been as warm as expected. We’ve had full clouds for 6 days and haven’t seen the sun at all. It’s been blowing easterlies all week, and patchy drizzle that doesn’t really wet the ground but makes the wind cool to cold. Real miserable weather.

This summer has been a huge non event. After not having a real spring I was looking forward to some beach weather. Anything 30C and above I call beach weather. This summer we’ve had 7 days total that fit that category. One was a horrendous 43.5C day which burnt things similar to frost in some parts of the garden. Too extreme that day. 

So down here you spend most of the year waiting for “summer weather” and when summer gets here it actually looks like a winters day just with higher temps. I saw better summers in the UK than this summer. 

 

[Tyrone]

This is what we’ve had for around 6 days.

Still it could be much worse. SE QLD have received anywhere between 500-1100mm of rain this week with horrendous floods.

[greysrigging]

A humdinger of a storm over the eastern side of Arnhemland

[greysrigging]

Have a look at the depth of the floodwarers in Gympie and Lismore !

[Tyrone]

23 hours ago, greysrigging said:

Have a look at the depth of the floodwarers in Gympie and Lismore !

It’s an incomprehensible amount of water. 

Glad Archontophoenix love their water. Just incredible flood levels.

The first pic in Gympie.  its amazing that when you build your house at the top of a fairly steep hill and put your house on stilts that you still have flood water that reaches as high as the power lines and gets your house anyway. That’s just mind blowing. 

[Tyrone]

On 2/6/2022 at 8:04 AM, Tyrone said:

This is the Chatham Island Nikau I was drenching every ten minutes for 3hrs. I think it came through well considering. There were some burn marks from a previous hot spell on the lower frond. Most of the damage on the Hedychiums was from too much water last year. We ended up with 1230mm for the year. The white patches on them were from yesterday’s heat. Officially it got to 44.2C at the airport but I doubt we got that high here. It always tracks a little higher in temp and lower in humidity at the airport.

4 weeks on from the 43.5C “day of the incinerator” it’s cloudy and drizzling and the Chatham is a very happy chappy. It’s opening the new spear. 

[PalmCode]

22 hours ago, Tyrone said:

4 weeks on from the 43.5C “day of the incinerator” it’s cloudy and drizzling and the Chatham is a very happy chappy. It’s opening the new spear. 

 

 

Thats impressive. No problems at all with that Chatham.

[sandgroper]

Gee I'm looking forward to a break from this stuff, bring on the cool weather.

[Tyrone]

1 hour ago, sandgroper said:

Gee I'm looking forward to a break from this stuff, bring on the cool weather.

Let’s swap. Was cloudy, drissly, with gusty easterly winds today. Clouds cleared at night, just when you don’t want it too. It’s akin to being stuck in an evaporative air conditioning duct, constantly. 

[UK_Palms]

On 2/27/2022 at 8:42 AM, Tyrone said:

So down here you spend most of the year waiting for “summer weather” and when summer gets here it actually looks like a winters day just with higher temps. I saw better summers in the UK than this summer. 

If you were here last summer you probably wouldn't be complaining as our summer was absolutely abysmal last year. Not much heat, not much sun, too much rain and a couple of storms. The maximum in London was a pathetic 32C / 92F for summer 2021, which is crap! The previous two summers both saw 37C / 100F in London. Compared to recent years, we only had a handful of 'hot' days as well last summer in July. The summer solstice (June 21st) was actually colder than New Years day 2022! My peppers and tomato crops were abysmal compared to previous years.

That summer also followed on from an awful spring for us too. I guarantee your summer has been much, much better than our summer last year. September was significantly warmer and sunnier than August here. In fact I think it was the dullest August on record at Heathrow and like the 3rd coldest. June and July weren't much better either, both wet and cool. Certainly my worst summer since 2013 at least. If it is like that again this year, I am legit emigrating to WA. Going by the law of average though, spring and summer 2022 can't be as bad as 2021 though. Surely not.

[Samuel]

22 hours ago, UK_Palms said:

If you were here last summer you probably wouldn't be complaining as our summer was absolutely abysmal last year. Not much heat, not much sun, too much rain and a couple of storms. The maximum in London was a pathetic 32C / 92F for summer 2021, which is crap! The previous two summers both saw 37C / 100F in London. Compared to recent years, we only had a handful of 'hot' days as well last summer in July. The summer solstice (June 21st) was actually colder than New Years day 2022! My peppers and tomato crops were abysmal compared to previous years.

That summer also followed on from an awful spring for us too. I guarantee your summer has been much, much better than our summer last year. September was significantly warmer and sunnier than August here. In fact I think it was the dullest August on record at Heathrow and like the 3rd coldest. June and July weren't much better either, both wet and cool. Certainly my worst summer since 2013 at least. If it is like that again this year, I am legit emigrating to WA. Going by the law of average though, spring and summer 2022 can't be as bad as 2021 though. Surely not.

Last summer was unusual for the uk in that it was drier and warmer relative to average the further north and west you went but it wasn’t a cold summer by any means an a high of 32c is a standard summer high the vast majority of summers do not go higher then that and actually a few decades ago we would go years without getting above 30c your expectations for summers are very high 

 

[UK_Palms]

@Samuel My expectations are probably higher due to previous 'good' summers in recent years, but that single map you uploaded doesn't reflect the summer in whole for me in southeast England. It was far duller than average, far wetter than average and daytime highs were especially low in August. It was also the lowest maxima for the UK since at least 2013. Overall a really poor summer for southeast England, especially given the crap spring before it. I think it was a bit of a freak year for southeast England in general, given how much better the north faired. 

I guarantee that will be the reverse opposite for this year, which will probably be more normal. Much warmer and drier in the southeast, akin to 4 of the past 5 summers (last summer being the exception). I think you are slightly downplaying just how poor last summer was though for us in the southeast, compared to recent years. I grow a lot of vegetable crops, as well as palms, which tells me exactly just how poor last summer was. And it was poor.

Growth rates were half of what they should be really and diseases were rampant due to the wet and cool conditions. Tomatoes and peppers did pretty bad. Overall it was a crap summer. No higher than a 3/10 rating from me and that is being generous. Average temperatures seem high because of all the cloud cover in general, which kept nighttime temperatures pretty high, thus raising the average temperature. Daytime highs were abysmal though. Almost as bad as San Francisco haha. 

[Samuel]

54 minutes ago, UK_Palms said:

@Samuel My expectations are probably higher due to previous 'good' summers in recent years, but that single map you uploaded doesn't reflect the summer in whole for me in southeast England. It was far duller than average, far wetter than average and daytime highs were especially low in August. It was also the lowest maxima for the UK since at least 2013. Overall a really poor summer for southeast England, especially given the crap spring before it. I think it was a bit of a freak year for southeast England in general, given how much better the north faired. 

I guarantee that will be the reverse opposite for this year, which will probably be more normal. Much warmer and drier in the southeast, akin to 4 of the past 5 summers (last summer being the exception). I think you are slightly downplaying just how poor last summer was though for us in the southeast, compared to recent years. I grow a lot of vegetable crops, as well as palms, which tells me exactly just how poor last summer was. And it was poor.

Growth rates were half of what they should be really and diseases were rampant due to the wet and cool conditions. Tomatoes and peppers did pretty bad. Overall it was a crap summer. No higher than a 3/10 rating from me and that is being generous. Average temperatures seem high because of all the cloud cover in general, which kept nighttime temperatures pretty high, thus raising the average temperature. Daytime highs were abysmal though. Almost as bad as San Francisco haha. 

Yes you do have point it wasn’t great but we have had far worse summers in the past 2007-2012 was abysmal for heat and dry weather  2013 was actually the best summer at the time since 2006. 
The funny  thing is my CIDP  grow loads last spring/summer despite no especially high temps it put out around 7 spears tho it is planted close to a brick wall 

[UK_Palms]

I knew Queensland was getting some pretty bad floods recently, but I've just seen that Sydney has also already had 822mm / 32 inches of rainfall already in 2022. That is staggering, given that Sydney isn't even located in the tropics so to speak, being at 33S. I have only recorded 34mm / 1.3 inches myself to date so far. I'm guessing its about 1 inch in WA as well, for 2022 to date, at least in Perth anyway? Goes to show just how wet it has been in NSW and Queensland. It's almost apocalyptic rainfall amounts with even more to come.

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by UK_Palms

[Tyrone]

1 hour ago, UK_Palms said:

I knew Queensland was getting some pretty bad floods recently, but I've just seen that Sydney has also already had 822mm / 32 inches of rainfall already in 2022. That is staggering, given that Sydney isn't even located in the tropics so to speak, being at 33S. I have only recorded 34mm / 1.3 inches myself to date so far. I'm guessing its about 1 inch in WA as well, for 2022 to date, at least in Perth anyway? Goes to show just how wet it has been in NSW and Queensland. It's almost apocalyptic rainfall amounts with even more to come.

 

The east has certainly had the rain this year and last. The west coast has pretty much had nothing to speak of. This time last year we had had plenty of rain and thunderstorms down my way. Completely different this year. Down on the south coast we’ve just had heaps of cloud cover, easterly winds that are monotonous during the day, and drizzle which doesn’t even register as rainfall often. Whereas the west coast has had a brutally hot summer that just keeps going. Looks like a 29C on Saturday with afternoon thunderstorms. Finally something different. 

[cbmnz]

Have not posted for ages,  have been watching the flooding on the East side of Australia with awe,sympathy and some fear, that the patterns seem to be so slow to change at the moment, we could have a month of two of rain like that perhaps, if it did finally shift.

Cyclone Dovi or the remains of it went through back on the 13th Feb while I was on holiday in the South Island,  and my area was right in the sting jet zone.  Not an area prone to strong winds so 80km/hr with some gusts 90 to 100 took out a lot of trees. Thankfully none of my palms were affected, got through just fine. 

Otherwise, just stuck in high pressure zone with constant Easterlies, it has not rained save for one very localised shower, since that good rain on the 7th Feb. At this rate could officially record zilch for the month of March. 

Every day is the same, partly cloudy to mostly sunny with high 25 to 28.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Silas_Sancona]

Saw this posted by one of our Climate gurus here in the U.S. 
 

Hearing the reports of.. / seeing some pictures of the flooding there is one thing, but seeing footage is another story.. Footage of the Glenore Bridge at the start of the video is pretty crazy. Reminds me of similar Flash Flooding - type of events that have occurred here and in other parts of the Southwestern U.S. / neighboring Mexico during really wet summers..

[Tyrone]

Much more gentle weather here on the southern WA coast. Misty 98%RH morning. Around 14C. Going for a humid 26C today. Not bad weather actually. 

[Tyrone]

Woke up this morning to 21C steady rain and rolling thunder. It’s meant to get to 28C but it looks like this rain has set in. If the clouds clear and the sun comes out it’ll be a sticky day. 

[sandgroper]

I wish I had that weather today Tyrone, it's warm, overcast and very steamy here but looks like no chance of rain. I'm ready for summer to end mate.

[greysrigging]

Looked good on the lightning tracker in the south west today....

[Tyrone]

We had 3.3mm of steady rain. Doesn’t sound like much but everything is nice and damp. It only got to just above 24C today when the sun came out with high humidity. A Lord Howe Island day. The plants and palms lapped it up. The forecast for the foreseeable future is mid to high teen minimums and low to mid twenties maximums with the odd shower here and there. Not too shabby for this place. 

[Tyrone]

Raining down here this weekend. The season is changing. Still no real cool nights which is good. Looks like we have the remnants of a tropical cyclone coming down to meet us this time next week. At this stage it’s looking like 40-80mm out of that ex tropical system but still early days to say with any certainty. 

[cbmnz]

Had a feeling this was going to happen soon. 

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/03/weather-in-pictures-major-deluge-of-heavy-rain-lightning-hammers-auckland-and-northland.html

Nothing major compared to Australia but some cars will be water damaged. Had about 85mm over 8 hours here which caused no major issues, really needed the rain.

[PalmCode]

Yeah lucky really it didn't  miss. All the dry regions  sound like they got the rain they needed and it passed on without  causing major damage. I haven't  seen thunderstorms with that much rain in years.

[PalmCode]

Just a quick update on the Hedyscepe I dug back out...It looks like its growing fine now. The new spear has grown up surprisingly fast and hopefully will open ok. These seem to grow good over winter time here so I'm glad i didn't butcher it so far.