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rednofl

Hard freeze in March ?? Really

rednofl
11 years ago

I just love the crazy weather we have in Florida.. Weather underground says 28 next Saturday night.. Weather.com says 44.. Hope you haven't planted all those veggies yet and I am supposed to be going to the beach LOL

This post was edited by rednofl on Sat, Feb 23, 13 at 6:33

Comments (47)

  • puglvr1
    11 years ago

    Yup, I mentioned this cold weather we're suppose to be getting next weekend on another thread "Springy".

    I noticed the huge difference between weather.com and weatherunderground too in my forecast, I'm betting weather.com will change theirs and it will be colder than what its saying now. I heard on a couple of the local weather stations that we are going to be much colder next weekend as well...just how cold is the question?

    Might not be the best beach weather next weekend..unless you head towards Miami or the Keys :o)

  • gatorbone
    11 years ago

    Weatherunderground for 32656 says 23 for next Sat. It has been far more acurate than any of the other prognosticators. Just planted a dorsett and an anna apple tree. No blooms yet,sure hope the freeze wont hurt them permanently.

  • puglvr1
    11 years ago

    Wow gatorbone...23 degrees!! Oh my goodness, best of luck and hopefully that won't be your actual temperature. Good luck with your newly planted apple trees...

  • pnbrown
    11 years ago

    Maybe I should give up florida gardening. My nice 8-inch tall corn got killed in the last go-round, and now the re-seeds are up.

  • rednofl
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    My bare root apples put out blossoms before leaves Im thinking 28 wont hurt them anyway the only thing I put in the ground was my jobaticaba and it small enough to cover. I have 10 banana bunches I was hoping would survive the winter.

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    WeatherUnderground says 34-36 for me that weekend. I'm going to stand in my yard all night with a couple hair dryers. Dang it!

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    It's starting to look way too similar to the last freeze... but worse. Friday, for me, has gone from 30F to 39F, but Saturday, Sunday and Monday have dropped to 30F, 28F and 27F (respectively). I guess I will be digging out the Christmas lights again over the next week. Weather.com is still projecting temps about 10F higher than Weather Underground. I find myself hoping that Weather.com might actually be the correct one this time, though I fear that Wunderground is once again closer to accurate.

  • puglvr1
    11 years ago

    I'm in the same boat...weatherunderground is projecting around 10 degrees lower than weather.com as of right now for me also. I have a feeling weather.com will adjust it and be colder than what they are saying in the next few days. The local news definitely mentioned this cold front coming next week...it also seems to hang around a lot longer than the last one. Mine shows at least 4 mornings in a row of lows in the 30's starting Saturday night...Yikes!!

    Stay tuned...the forecast will be a roller coaster for a while :o(

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    Friday: 45, Saturday 37, Sunday 30, Monday 36, Tuesday 34, Wednesday 36... weather underground is slowly rising in forecasted temps while weather.com has remained pretty consistent with their forecast.

    Did April Fools come early this year?

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    Very strange. I thought predicting the weather was supposed to be more science and less "interpretive dance."

  • gatorbone
    11 years ago

    "I'M SO CONFUSED". Sometimes I think all of them pull the numbers from .....you know where.

  • KaraLynn
    11 years ago

    Good thing I left the christmas lights out and all of the covers are sitting in a pile right inside the garage door! I even left the rocks I used to anchor the covers down scattered around the garden. The bad news is that I got a bit carried away this weekend and finished trimming back the entire front flower bed! If the forecast does what it did for the last freeze the temps will continue to drop the closer we get to the weekend and since they already have me at freezing I know what I'll be doing come friday!

    Kara

  • kayjones
    11 years ago

    Kara, I'm in your boat, too - I will be covering like mad tomorrow - tent-city AGAIN!

  • Steppy
    11 years ago

    I like Accuweather best. It has us here in Sarasota County 10a down to the 40's a few days in the next few weeks. 43 is the lowest predicted. I'm getting a bit tired of having to take tender tropical plants in and out. I hope this doesn't mean a scorcher of a summer.

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    Tomorrow? Weatherunderground says Inverness is only going down to 57 tomorrow night (Tuesday)? Your Wednesday night is only going down to 50. Looks like you shouldn't need to worry until Thursday night, which is predicted at 41, as well as Friday. Then Saturday is the nail-biter.
    Here's my updates:

  • scents_from_heaven
    11 years ago

    I researched the top ten sites for Orlando and the lowest temp over the next 14 days will be 38 around March 10. I always play on the cautious side even though I reside in a somewhat semi tropical area. My father always said that you can expect a frost until Easter. He said he had lived by that rule all his life. The last frost is just before Easter. I have a lot of stuff in the ground and a lot germinating as I also follow his rule, but the things planted are cold resistant and the things that arenâÂÂt are ready for the Christmas lights or light bulb and are easily covered by my quick put together greenhouse. I lost too many things attempting to plant early. I also judge by the fur on my cats. Though they are indoor cats their fur still sheds according to the weather and they still have their undercoats which is good enough for me. Good luck everyone and happy weather watching and gardening. We canâÂÂt win them all no matter how hard we try because Mother Nature is fickle and sometimes she has to remind us who is boss.

  • scents_from_heaven
    11 years ago

    Remember when they had snow fluries in the air in Miami in July

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    34F is the lowest they're saying now. I can handle 34F. That won't even burn my Pentas. Though it might make my Gopher Apple want to drop all its leaves again. But it won't upset me if they keep raising those temps.

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    Worst days for me in the forecast right now are Saturday night 37 and Sunday night 39. (Weatherunderground)

    When I lived in Michigan, the rule-of-thumb for frost was to wait until after Mother's Day. Here, I say St. Patrick's Day. That's two months difference! I shouldn't complain.... *she says while groaning about the weather*...

  • puglvr1
    11 years ago

    35 degrees this morning for me...tomorrow is suppose to be a little colder :o(

    Hope everyone stays above freezing for our plants sake...good luck!

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    Well, due to that whole zone-denial thing... these temps aren't a WHOLE lot better for some of my stuff.
    I'm tellin' ya. They should clearly label plants that are way outside of their comfort zones.Or sell the *&$#@ thing WITH it's protective cover!

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    It got down to 37F here, according to the thermometer sensor in the lanai. I had put up my tomatoes and Key Lime (that is just starting to bloom/fruit) in my shed and kept a light on them. They look to have done fairly well over the night. I also covered my wife's mandarin and put some Christmas lights on it. In reality, mid-30's shouldn't affect it much. But it got hit pretty hard by that dip to 27-28F a few weeks ago and just started putting out new growth the day before yesterday, so I wanted to make sure this growth makes it.

    I had also put some black grower pots over my stumped Firebush (also just barely putting out new growth) and my gopher apple (most sensitive of all my plants).

    The final section to get covered was my daughter's new butterfly garden area. It has some Pentas, Salvias, Milkweed and a dwarf Firebush (not the native variety). Most of those should do okay, unless we get down to below 32F, which we're not forecasted to do. But again, I wanted to be sure. So far her Butterfly Garden is the most complete bed I have, though it still has two empty spots that need to be filled with something. So I would really like it to escape fairly untouched by the next couple of nights.

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    Crap. I forgot to cover MY stumped Firebush.

  • L_in_FL
    11 years ago

    Whew, I got lucky here. 33 was the predicted low temperature, but 36 was my actual. I didn't have any losses, even though I ended up being gone all day and didn't get a chance to cover the tomatoes I (boldly/stupidly) planted out after the last freeze. Tonight is predicted for 36, and after that it should warm up.

    I sure hope that after this we will be done with freezes/scares for this spring!

  • cenflagirl
    11 years ago

    My low in Melbourne was 35 and at 3 PM it's just 56. Brrrr!

    PS, I have gone to my profile, and changed the zone, but it doesn't appear to have changed on this post.....any suggestions guys?

  • writersblock (9b/10a)
    11 years ago

    If you want the zone to show and you weren't in the original batch of posters here you have to add it every time.

  • puglvr1
    11 years ago

    Happy to hear you had no damage LinFL...while checking out different places I noticed that Inverness, FL was zone 8B...I had NO idea...considering its just north of Tampa I figured it would be 9a. They must be in a really cold spot.

    I noticed they (Inverness) have a freeze warning for tomorrow morning. I'm glad your temps are only going to be 36 degrees.

    I'm suppose to be 37 degrees and considering I'm in zone 9B, I can't believe there is only one degree difference between our forecast and I live in Highlands County,lol... south of you :o)

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    Finally weatherchannel and weatherunderground agree within a degree of each other. Here's my next seven days' forecast.

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    Wow. That showed up big. Oops.

  • puglvr1
    11 years ago

    Hi Shear...may I ask you how you posted that to look exactly like their website? Every time I copy and paste it on here...its just numbers doesn't look anything like that...I'm using either Firefox or Chrome, makes no difference... Are you using a specific program? Thanks!!

    BTW, my weather.com and weatherunderground actually agree with each other this time. NWS is calling for a few degrees colder 34 degrees instead of 37 the two above.

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    I'm using a Mac and taking a screen shot. (Command, Shift, 4) Then it auto-saves on my desktop for my use.

    If you're on a PC, and have Windows 7, you can go to Start, All Programs, Snipping Tool, then choose the shape you want, drag across the part you want (like cropping a picture), then save it to wherever you want to save it.

    If there's an easier way, I don't know what it is any more. When I used to use a PC, I used SnagIt (which was free, but I hear it's not free any more)

    Here is a link that might be useful: wikiHow Screenshot on PC

  • puglvr1
    11 years ago

    Thank you Shear...I'm not the most savy when it comes to computers...sounds a little complicated to me :o) Maybe I'll just let it go for now unless someone out there knows an easier way, thanks though! Appreciate it!

  • saldut
    11 years ago

    Here in my little patch it was 43 this morning, and supposed to get colder tonite..Pinellas County ranges 6-7 degrees from the north to the south end, sometimes as much as 10 degrees...also close to the water it is always warmer maybe 4-5 degrees from same line inland... strange, eh? sally

  • writersblock (9b/10a)
    11 years ago

    >Wow. That showed up big. Oops.

    Not your fault. There are some image embedding programs that have a minimum size, so in addition to making large images small when you embed them, they make tiny images huge. I see GW is using one such.

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    Woke up this morning. Stumbled through the house to wake the kids for school. Stumbled into the kitchen to make breakfast. Stumbled to the front door and checked the thermometer. It read 29F with an overnight low of 28F. Stumbled back to the kitchen muttering curses at Old Man Winter with each step. It's a good thing I had my wife's Mandarin wrapped and covered. Some of my other frost sensatives... not so lucky. I guess when things warm up I will go see how everything faired through the night.

  • abnorm
    11 years ago

    Hard frost here in Downtown Orlando this AM........The tender veggies are grouped and covered but not "heated".....

    doug

  • kayjones
    11 years ago

    Good morning! It's 37 here this morning, supposed to be 57 tomorrow morning, 45 Wed. morning, 42 Thurs. morning and back into the 50's for morning lows. I have everything covered with blankets and will leave them covered until Sunday, when it finally settles down. Geeze Louise - enough cold already!

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    It's 34 here right now.
    BRR!
    I think I'll stay wrapped in my Snuggie and worry about my plants from the couch!

  • puglvr1
    11 years ago

    Hello and Good morning to all...it was 32 degrees when I woke up this morning. Frost on the roofs and lawn :o( looking at the weather website looks like it was only 32 for about an hour. Hopefully...my Lychee and mango flowers survived.

    This post was edited by puglvr1 on Mon, Mar 4, 13 at 7:31

  • kayjones
    11 years ago

    It's 39 right now, here in NW Florida, with a light frost. Thankfully, I covered all the tender plants on Friday!

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    Just did a quick scan of plants while taking the dogs out. The Bearss Lime has maybe two leaves left on it and the tomato plants inside my shed so far look fine. One of my recently acquired Whorld Class Walters Viburnums looks like it's going to need replacing. It was already struggling after the last frost and now I don't see a speck of green on it, but again, it was a quick scan. I will go back out later and pull back some coverings and see what else I can find. I imagine my pygmy date palms got hit pretty hard since they weren't covered at all (Was only expecting mid-30's temps). I also didn't provide any heat to my seedlings/cuttings shelf last night, so I'm dreading what I'm going to see there when I pull off the coverings.

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    Okay, shortly after posting the above, I looked at my thermometer and it read 45F, it now reads 51F, so I figured I would go ahead and check on the beds that are in the sunlight.

    My daughter's new, little Butterfly Garden looks to be okay. There might be some wilting on one of the pentas plants as well as a small handful of leaves on the dwarf firebush, but it looks to be largely fine. Even the Salvia sprouts are looking good.

    The seedling/cuttings shelf looks fine as well, miraculously. It's maybe 6 ft from the outdoor sensor, so it got down to 28F around them, but I can see coleus sprouts breaking soil in one of my flats.

    The pygmy dates in my SW bed are definitely a bit more brown now. I really need to replace them outright with palms that can handle these temps (I've actually already replaced one with Needle Palm). The wild plumbago in that bed looks like it might go to ground. The Firecrackers I'm not sure on. They 'look' fine, but they should have taken SOME damage in those temps without any kind of protection (Edit: 0945 - Now that there's a bit more light and it's warming up, the Firecrackers look like they might go to ground as well). It looks like I had my Firebush stump adequately protected, it still has its new growth.

    I was wrong about the Bearss Lime, it has four leaves left, not two. But the branches look half-dead. I think I will be trimming back a lot of dead growth in a couple of weeks. The Meyer Lemon looks no worse than it did before this frost, but it took three days after the last frost for it to drop leaves in response.

    I haven't looked at my NW bed yet since it is still deep in shadow. In the next hour to hour and a half the sunlight should hit this area and I will be able to pull back coverings.

    This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Mon, Mar 4, 13 at 9:45

  • Richard (Vero Beach, Florida)
    11 years ago

    Light frost in some of the low laying areas in South West Vero Beach, seven miles inland. I was expecting it to be a close call, probably damaging no more than a few green bean leaves, nothing worth trying to cover. Looks like even they're okay though. It's only my third Spring here. I really wasn't expecting this in March.

  • KaraLynn
    11 years ago

    I don't know how cold it got at my house last night but it was well below freezing judging by the frozen bird bath and the thick layer of frost on my car! All the plants should be okay though since most were covered and a few had lights under the covers with them. Again the plants with the warmest light were the big red leafed crinums but this time I made sure that the amaryllis around the base were covered too. Not only does the biggest crinum have a bloom stalk coming up but one of the amaryllis has decided to bloom as well!

    Kara

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    Final Update for the morning:

    1030 - Just checked the NW bed as the sun is starting to hit this area. Pulled the covers off my wife's mandarin and all the new tender growth looks to be fine. So I will be allowed to sleep inside tonight instead of standing out all night with a hair dryer in hand.

    The rest of my NW bed looks pretty much like I thought it would. All the Pentas cuttings from last fall were knocked back down to roots. Again. If they come back again I'm going to rename them Comic Book Hero plants (because in comics, the heroes NEVER die, even when you're SURE they did).

    The Gopher Apple, even though it was protected a bit, looks like it's trying to decide whether or not to drop its new leaves. Which means it likely will, I swear that plant is more temperamental about temperature drops than my tropicals.

    One of my three recently acquired Pawpaws (a Flag Pawpaw) looks like it might drop its leaves as well. The flowers on it are definitely done for. The other Flag Pawpaw looks like it might keep its leaves, but it's flower buds are discolored, so they will probably drop. The third Pawpaw, which is a different species, looks to be fine as it was much lower to the ground.

    Of my two bird baths, the above ground one was still frozen solid, at 1000 in the morning. The sunken one was fine and even had little bird tracks in the sand suggesting that it's been visited this morning.

    Of my passionvines, the one Maypop on the south side of my shed, the one that gets full sun every day, looks like it went to ground. The maypop on the north side, the one that sits in shadow all day every day, looks like it's fine. It may have even been giggling. The Passiflora caerula, which is just 3 ft away from the southern Maypop is also doing fine.

    Pulled the plants from the shed to give them some water and sunshine. They look to be okay. One of my tomato plants even has flowers opening up on it. The leaves looked a bit droopy, but I'm thinking they'll perk up as they drink in that water and sun. The Key Lime that was hiding in the shed also looks good. Better than good. It's about to go into a Bloom Flush and even has a small lime growing already (don't tell my wife).

    The blueberry bush looks to be doing better in its new, sunnier location. The new flowers look like they might have taken a hit, but from what BB said about preventing flowers/berries for the first year, this could be a good thing.

    That's about it for now. The next couple of days will tell just how far the damage really went.

  • puglvr1
    11 years ago

    This March sure has had some cold mornings...

    Guess old man winter isn't quite ready to retire yet...

    A few more cold morning left before its Spring.

    I feel bad for Inverness...seems to be one of the coldest spot on the NW coast.

    From Weather.com
    Wed
    Mar 13
    73ð
    38ð
    Sunny

    Thu
    Mar 14
    68ð
    34ð
    Sunny

    Fri
    Mar 15
    73ð
    39ð
    Sunny

  • shear_stupidity
    11 years ago

    Oftlog! This really is getting old, isn't it?

    Thankfully we'll be nice and toasty warm at 43 as Wednesday's overnight low. (The other days are mostly mid- to upper-fifties)