January Weather Thread

[_Keith]

Stormy gulf too.  Yesterday was wind gust to 85mph and waves 16-20.   Calmer today, but another winter storm on the way for the weekend.  Predicted lows for Sat night are holding at 30 with AM showers.

[_Keith]

Well, this freeze is gonna be nasty.   Got 2 inches of rain just a couple of days ago, and another 2 inches in the early morning hours today.  Still cloudy and drizzling as I type.   Temps are heading to 29 tonight.   I think this is the palm killer weather, cold and wet, more than just cold.  Oh well, there is no escape, just dealing with the consequences.

[FRITO]

same here. wet/cold/wet/cold cloudy rain /cold

that about sums it up plus were heading  down to 31 tonight and 27 tommorow night.

sunday cold and sunny with a high forcasted at 50.

nasty depressing weather

[ruskinPalms]

North Gulf Coast Palm Enthusiaists: Good luck with this next freeze and cool wet weather. Next couple of days look a little rocky. There is line of very strong storms moving in off the gulf from the west this evening. I hope they don't become tornadic as they make landfall... It is supposed to get down to 43F tomorrow night then after that we are looking at lows in the high 50s to low 60s and highs in the low to mid 70s, much like this last week was - good freeze recovery weather. My hibiscus bushes got defoliated this last freeze, but they are all putting out new leaves right now since we have been in this wetter period. Coconut and Royal are both actually opening a frond right now ???  Bananas and Papayas still have not made any significant signs of recovery but at least their trunks are still standing. I expect a good recovery provided we don't dip into the upper 20s again this winter...

[Neofolis]

We are having an extended mild spell at the moment with a fair amount of wind and rain.  Yesterday was our warmest day of the year so far at 14°C/57°F and the temperature didn't drop below 13°C/55°F all night, which is the highest minimum temperature I can recall ever seeing in January.  Our average night time lows in July and August are 11°C/52°F.

[scl113074]

Mississippi gulf coast heading for a wet 28-30 degree night tonight. This could finish off some severly damaged palms from beginning of january. I don't know if this is good for the palm salesman or bad. I think al gore needs to return his award, because this is some of the coldest temps we've experienced since 80's and early 90's . I think i need some global warming.

[Alicehunter2000]

Oh Man! This weather is sucking right now...........bout to zoom on over to the local news to see if it will freeze tonight. Wet, Cold, Windy and Miserable.....burned a fire in the fireplace today to stave off the dark, dank to-the-bone, chill..........And how was your day

[_Keith]

Same as yours.  Skies cleared just little while ago and now the mercury is dropping.   35 and counting down to 29, if weather.com is correct, that is.

[cobra2326]

I just watched the temp drop over 10 degrees in the last two hours.  Clearwater/St. Pete AP dropped 11!  When it was 66 here at 9PM, I was starting to deny the predicted 44F low here tonight... I'm now a believer.

[happ]

It's cold coast to coast   almost the entire nation is under the influence of modified arctic air.  Only Florida will warm up this week.

It has yet to arrive in California but by Monday night the advection of a very cold air mass will be in place.  What's usual is that a low pressure system currently moving thru the PacNW will stall over Idaho/Montana then retrograde southwest [against the prevailing westeries] & drop temps in California.

This will be a very cold week in the West [bye bye 70's bye bye 60's  

LA: 72F/22.2c

     47F/8.3c

[amazondk]

The rain stopped yesterday and the high was 89F / 32 C at 3 PM.  At the time I was roasting some meat on the grill behind my house and took this picture looking up from the back of my house.   Maybe at least mentally it may help some warm up where it is cold thinking of warmer days or places.

dk

[Kathryn]

Keith - I just saw your post about 33ºF and frost on January 14. How did that happen? I don’t think I’ve been in the 30’s since the first week of January and haven’t had any frost yet this year. According to the weather data, my low was 44ºF for January 14 - that’s a big difference for such a short distance.

The temperature was 32ºF at sunrise this morning. None of my foliage will be damaged, but I am a little worried about root rot since I’ve had over 5 inches of rain in the last week alone.

I wanted to do some yard work yesterday, but it was 40ºF with 15-20 mph wind - way too cold for me to go outside. Today it should be about 50F by noon, so I should be able to work outside for a little while if only this wind would die down.

[spockvr6]

43.5F here this AM...the forecast was 48F :-(

[mnorell]

We bottomed out at 27.0F this morning. It hit the freezing point at 10:00 last night and currently it's still only 29.5. We're supposed to rise above freezing about 9am. Ouch! I hate these 12-hour freezes! At least we didn't get down to 23F as we did two weeks ago, and there's no frost to be seen. That's good news. We had a wonderful and quite heavy snowfall yesterday morning, went on for about 5 hours with temps just above freezing, and all surfaces were clean by 11am. Now that was a lot of fun for this California boy, it's the first time I've seen flakes since a few stray flurries hit San Diego in 1967 when I was in kindergarten!

[Kathryn]

Michael,

Got some pictures of the snow?

Kathryn

[FRITO]

bottomed out at 30.1 degrees.  currently 42 degrees at 1:12pm doubt we will get to the forcasted 50 degrees as a high today. another cold one tonight at 27 ....

.......hunkering down whind chill in low 30's currently. brrrrrrr

[Exotic Life]

How is the weather over here? It's unbelieveble but it's almost look the same just like 2007... Januari 2007 was then tooo mild (mondly average from 8.1C/46.6F) with a lot of wind and rain ... Normal average for Jan for the Netherlands is 2.7C/36.8F.

Also this Januari is so far very mild, this weekend we have got tempeture during the day from 13C/55.4F and 10C/50F during the night... And also a lot of rain and wind we have got the last couple day's!

It's for sure that Januari 2007 will be also too mild as normal... but if it's getting milder then 2007 ... we now about 10 day's!.

Mondly average at this time is almost 7C/44.6F....

This picture's are not mine but is in the east of the country! I have got so far 60mm of rain ... Jan 2007 was more then 100mm.

Robbin

[_Keith]

Well poop.  We were supposed to be 29 last night and 35 tonight.  Last night was right on their target of 29, but now the projected low for tonight is 28.   This is gonna be my coldest winter, as far as lows are concerned since 2001.  Still a solid Zone 9a (we are rated 9a), but I want to be in Zone 10 dangit, and for the last 5 years with have been save for 4 hours of so.  And I am not moving, so common nature, give me a break.  

Actually all of that whiny stuff was said in good fun, but I am kinda tired of winter.  I hope, as far as freezes are concerned, this is the last hoorah for this year.  I am ready to get busy with the spring gardening stuff.

[Kathryn]

Keith - I didn’t realize that freezing temperatures were forecasted again for tonight - thanks for the heads up. I just checked and I should have a low just around freezing again, with strong winds and no frost. I won’t be protecting anything from the cold, but I don’t like all this wind. I might throw some garbage cans over a few smaller palms just to give them a break.

Kathryn

[ruskinPalms]

Forcast from NOAA is for 44F tonight. I don't believe them. I think I will hit anywhere from 39 to 41. I'll report tomorrow what actually happens. It got down to 45.7F this morning and I think they had 50F forcasted the last time I looked. I hope this is the last hurrah too, but I think we have a solid month of hurrahs left

[_Keith]

You might be right on Bill.  

Projected lows here were just dropped from 28 to 26 for tonight.   At 8pm it is already 34 degrees.  So, all I can say is cr@p.   I guess this will finish off my Dypsis Lutescens.  My fault, I planted it too late and didn't water it enough.  Probably will finish off my Fox too.  It would have made it, but this freeze right behind the one before might be too much.   I guess I'll be getting that 3rd Mule for sure.  

Let's see, what else is gonna tank.  Probably that Coccothrinax.   And probably that big Bizzie I had to move as well.   Well,, the palms that are suffering, and will probably go down the tubes, were all under stress anyway due to my fault.  

I guess I have cried in my beer enough here.  Temp dropped a half a degree while I typed this.  I am betting 25, even lower than the project 26.

[ruskinPalms]

Hit 41.4F at 5 AM this morning. Slow rise since then. Definitely colder than the 44F they predicted.

[_Keith]

Saved by the bell, err cloud cover that is.  When the clouds moved in the temp drop stalled at 33.7.  Now at 7am it is already up to 35.  Yahoo!!!!

[SunnyFl]

Keith, may we have an update on your dypsis and foxtail when possible?  Would be interested in hearing how they fare where you are - sure hope they pulled through.

Seems as if we bottomed out around 45 - 46 last night.  Actually had to have the heat on last night and I brought in the actinokentia and the guppys just to be on the safe side.  Given the temps north of here, I have nothing to whine about, but am really ticked off this cold snap had to coincide with my 3-day weekend.  Was looking forward to making serious progress on the garden, but Sunday was too cold, and today doesn't seem too much better.  

At least I got the crotons and shefflera transplanted, and some bougies planted before Saturday's rain.

Don K - what a beautiful picture.  Thank you for posting it.

[spockvr6]

Very strange temps last night!

In the early AM (around 4AM) my yard actually dropped to 38.8F!  This was much colder than other areas around Tampa Bay.  I was even a efw degrees colder than the Tampa Bay icebox of Vandenberg AP!  Why, I am not sure.  Fortunately it wasnt cold enough to be of any real consequence.

Tampa AP - 42F

Clearwater AP - 43F

St. Pete (downtown) - 46F

Vandenberg AP - 41F

[SunnyFl]

Larry did all your palms recover from the last cold snap?  I think you were worried about a couple of them - wasn't the pritchardia one of them?

I'm concerned about my fine-leafs.  The wind on Saturday night was awful - even though they were well-staked, they were blowing pretty badly.  Haven't lost a plant to cold here (current addy, not Pinellas Park) - but the losses to wind, that's a whole nother story.

[spockvr6]

(SunnyFl @ Jan. 21 2008,10:42)

QUOTE

Larry did all your palms recover from the last cold snap?  I think you were worried about a couple of them - wasn't the pritchardia one of them?

Sunny-

Thank you for asking!

My yard took some damage from the nasty cold spell a few weeks ago, but most things looks fine.

The Prichardia was the big surprise!  I thought it would have been killed outright, yet it only got some spotted leaves up high, and a few lower leaves which got browned!  This was unbelievable to me for such a tender palm.

Surprisingly, the most hard hit palm in my yard was a single Spindle.  I have one of them that looks to have been about 100% bronzed!  Yet, all the others have only some browning, or none at all.  

My tallest Veitchia (which got exposed to the full brunt of the cold dry winds) also took some damage, but it will be fine.  This thing pops out leaves so fast that a few browned ones wont make any difference in a few months.

All my other tender palms seem OK with just some of the typical browned and wind whipped tips and some leaves which are burned.

[spockvr6]

Oh yes...another notable.....

My moderately sized Hibiscus tiliaceus which received a good dose of wind whipping was 100% defoliated.  But, all the wood is fine and still green.

[FRITO]

somthing wierd happend last night also.  At 2am est when I went to bed this morning my meter read 29.9..... it bottomed out at 29.2 which isnt so bad.  clear skys all night with dewpoints in the teens.

But what is wierd is the airport bottomed at 32 which usually is a few degrees colder than I am...there was a constant north or NE wind at about  7mph throughtout the night so this may had to do somthing with it.(my meter is on the north side of my house though)

[_Keith]

While I am sitting around on this cold day, not, an old rhyme came to mind, so I thought I would re-write it to be symbolic of January in the South.

First you here of winter

and you fear the worse

And when you think about it more

You begin to curse

The plants come in

The plants go out

Available space is what you lack

The plants play pinochle while you clutch your back

You bring them in

The warm, dry house

All the while hearing

The muttering of your spouse

The plants come in

The plants go out

And just when you think you’re done

Your back gives out

The plants come in

The plants go out

The weather laughs all night

While you sit around and pout

And then winter is done

Or so you think

So you put out the plants

Then they freeze and begin to stink

So now you think your plants are surely  done

And then the plants come back

It is all winter's fun

And all is well, except your back.

And now you know

I am not a poet

But I hate winter

For sure you know it

[ruskinPalms]

It got very clear by the early morning hours and the temperture dropped more than predicted. I think there was a little radiational cooling despite the 5 to 10 mph wind all night.  On that subject, I am pretty sure there was some radational burn on some of my palms and plants on the night of the advective freeze in early Jan. I remember Ray saying in other threads that his stuff under oak canopy was not damaged during the advective freeze. I think that demonstrated that there was still a radiational component to the advective freeze, just no frost. I had a grove of papayas that got roasted up higher, but the smaller papayas did not get damaged under the "canopy" of the larger ones. Any thoughts?

[mnorell]

Love that poem of yours, Keith. What a PITA it all is! But then again, we're all just a little crazy, aren't we, gluttons for punishment.

Kathryn, here are pics from Saturday's snow in Natchez. I can hardly believe I live here...what happened to the sultry south???

My snowy jungle courtyard (this looks just a LITTLE different in summer!):

Front walkway:

Bizzie in the snow (what a trooper):

Livistona saribus (it's a long way to Vietnam from here):

[mnorell]

And a few more general shots around Natchez Saturday:

Some shots around Natchez:

[happ]

WoW Michael   great photos [but sorry about the damage

[mnorell]

happ, the snow actually didn't cause any problems except some light damage to some Anthurium andreanum plants I had left out...since the temp never went below freezing it was only on really tender stuff that the snow had any impact. But nothing serious. Unfortunately it was followed by two nights with long freezes (though only to 27 and 29 degrees), though the really tender stuff was inside and cozy. I am so ready for winter to be over, what happened to the warm winter we were supposed to have here in the south? I suppose it went the same way as the predicted hurricane seasons the last two years...

Glad to hear that you will probably miss any damaging cold this week in SoCal, and speaking of crazy snow I do remember going to Easter services at St. Andrews on Raymond in Pasadena about ten years ago and you could see the snow-level was SOOOOO low it was crazy, I think under 1200'! Amidst all this wintery weather, all I know is that I'll be in toasty Miami this weekend romping around Fairchild and at the big orchid show, yippee!

[Tyrone]

Here's the weather for the next week in Perth. We're averaging 18.5C min to 32.5C max for Jan so far.

Forecast for Wednesday

Fine. Fresh and gusty E'ly winds easing before an afternoon coastal sea breeze.

Precis:      Fine.                              

City:        Max 36

Mandurah:    Max 33

UV Index:    11 [Extreme] UV Alert from  9:30 to 17:20  

Fire Danger: Coastal Plain: HIGH    

            Hills:         VERY HIGH

Thursday     Possible early shower then fine.       Min 22     Max 38

Friday       Fine.                                  Min 22     Max 36

Saturday     Fine.                                  Min 21     Max 35

Sunday       Fine.                                  Min 20     Max 37

Monday       Fine.                                  Min 21     Max 36

Tuesday      Fine.                                  Min 22     Max 38

Best regards

Tyrone

[_Keith]

The January Roller Coaster

Hard to believe how miserable it was just a few days ago. And then today topped out with low 70s under blue bird skies.  It was so beautiful, I took a 3 mile round trip walk from the office to down town for lunch.  Then again, it will be raining tomorrow.  In a few days we will be back to 36 for a low.  But after that, we will be right back to the 70s with a projected high of 77 this weekend.  So goes the roller coaster.

[simona]

Don't know if anyone is interested but:

[ruskinPalms]

Welcome Simona! Looks pretty cold. Is that normal for you or is it an unusual cold snap? Are there a lot of palms in Amman, Jordan?

[spockvr6]

Goodness gracious!

Another surprise this AM. The forecast called for 50F, yet I logged 43.7F.