This has been a nice warm fall. Last night it got close to freezing. There's a flush of rosy growth on tree tips. Sun felt good yesterday.

My trees are growing. The evergreens are especially happy. They all loved the rainfall lately.

26 degrees F. shown by digital display on business sign near I-5 north of Everett yesterday at around 7AM. Had to get frozen crust off of car windows to leave Camano Island, where frostiness had already occurred some time ago.

Temperatures in 20's or worse predicted to soon penetrate Greater Seattle. All potted plants not super hardy should be protected from such cold, young roots near or on inside of pot walls die well above temperatures that damage the rest of the plant, including the top.

Up here in the belligerence of the great white north (aka canada) we just got our first hard frost last night...we have had a couple light frosts, but last night was definitely the first REAL one. we just spent all day covering our little trees in their burlap jackets for the winter.

What trees do you protect with burlap?
I have had three nights in a row with hard frosts, quite a bit later than normal. Usually that occurs in November, sometimes in October. I'm at 750 ft. about ten miles east of Renton.

Yes, in 1985 the worst weather of the winter came in November. November is the stormiest month of the year here. Just in my time I have seen Arctic fronts coming as early as November and as late as February.

Over here in balmy Suquamish, no frost yet :-) Close by in other areas but yet to hit my garden. But then I'm within a 1/4 mile of the Sound and my garden is really very sheltered by surrounding woodlands. I did take time yesterday to gather up all my containers and group them together where they do receive some reflected sunlight and heat, so hopefully they're in a microclimate within a larger microclimate!

Well, the last of my tender plants got it last night. I had left my fucshia baskets out because they were still flowering and an Anna Hummingbird is staying here.

My begonias are gone this morning, 20 degrees on the deck. They were still flowering yesterday. Poured hot water in the mermaid bird bath to break the ice. I pray this winter isn't anything like last with 16" of snow/ice/snow decapitating our trees and threatening the roof.

Fuchsias etc. still fresh in Edmonds.

Sorry, I misspelled fuchsias. It's a nasty word to spell, lovely flower.

Named after Fuchs. Fuchs-i-a.

No set day for plant killing weather down to 12 tomorrow night. Agaves might like it indoors by the woodstove.

We've been down to 28F a bunch of times, but nothing worse yet. For the last couple of days, Sequim has enjoyed some of the mildest temperatures in the state, according to the Seattle NWS site.

Tonight I finally brought in Cyathea medullaris, Parajubaea cocoides, and Beccariophoenix alfredii, among others. I'm about 3/4 of the way done bringing plants in; looks like I'll probably make it, since I still have tomorrow. It snowed 1/2" inch tonight, but it looks like it done, and I'm hoping most of it will melt tomorrow before the really cold air gets here.

It has been a very warm fall up until this week. Hiking in the Olympics on Sunday I was overheating. Then first frost came Tuesday, down to 28. It was 24 on Friday night. Forecast for 16 tonight. A relatively balmy 34 right now.

I've seen first frost come as early as late September. More usual is around Halloween, but this year (and last year) my dahlias were standing into December. Last year I didn't get frost until that arctic front moved in in mid December, then it went from 45 degrees to 20 in two days.

No snow here in Olympia, but a strong north wind blowing.

Fuchsias no longer pristine, rhododendrons rolled up.

My fuchsias also looking pretty sad and my rhodies rolled, same as bboy. Most of the perennials look like boiled spinach. The ground is frozen, high today of 31, supposed to be 13 tonight.

And so again we see that it gets below 15 degrees F. here too often for plants hardy to only 10-15 degrees to be reliable.

Unless you live in a mild neighborhood, right on the beach or quite nearby.

Many of us are talking about what is happening within a few miles of salt water. Many others live much farther out, will sometimes see 0 or even below. The minimum temperatures really drop off quickly once you head away from the Sound.

I had Fatsia japonica plants freeze to the ground last winter on Camano Island.

Under low-branching cypresses that I thought would provide a natural lathhouse effect.

Here it's -27F with a wind chill of -96. I give up on all these fancy zonal denial plants. Next year I'm redoing my yard with white spruce, Siberian larch and some fake palm trees.

although here in portland we are now as cold as its been this fall at 24 degrees. supposed to dip into the teens later tonite, we'll see how far we go. so far all my borderline plants are OK. we'll see how the abutilons fare tonite.

-27F! That is surprising. Very, very surprising.

Siberian larch would find Sequim too maritime.

Heard a report of 19F for Edmonds last night, 18F is forecast for tonight. In 1990 it was 10F in Edmonds during this month. Think it was at least 5F colder than that on our lot.

Unless the thermometer I looked at was off.

I think a friend said on the phone it was 13 last night, east of Lynnwood. They're not far from another site where it is claimed it once got down to 0. Same party has gardened there since the 1950s.

11 pm in SE Olympia, Chambers Prairie, about 14 on my front porch, forecasted for 9 at the airport, looks like it will get that low here as well.

The Weather Channel online shows December as the wettest and coldest month for my town, followed by January. I thought precipitation peaked in January in this region, and bottomed out in July. But the Weather Channel shows exactly the same average rainfall for July and August. Exactly.

12 degrees this AM here north of Monroe. Looks like what didn't get hit last winter will take a hit this time. No snow protection. No more marginal Rhodies for me!

I'm in Edmonds 1/2 mile from the water and at 130 ft elevation. The coldest temp I recorded last year was 16.3 on December 19. I thought that was impressively low and early in the season for this location. well we beat that this morning (11 days earlier in the month) at 15.6 deg F.

My hi-lo thermometer showed 12 and it's on a covered porch...I'm pretty sure my marginals are history, too. I've got a space heater running in my pump house and all my pipes are wrapped but I have no water...time to go to work with the blow dryer but I hardly know where to start.

>I'm in Edmonds 1/2 mile from the water and at 130 ft elevationMaybe if I open the window and shout you'll hear me.

15 degrees on my deck this morning. Super dry bitter cold out there.

Please no ice ....

Whatever the Weather Channel might say, I would go with the very useful archive of climate data on the Western Regional Climate Center web site which uses official values in its calculations. The driest month for western Washington is July, no doubt about it. The wettest month depends on what period of record you use. Using the most recent 30 years (or less) in your calculations, the wettest month is November. Using a longer period of record, or an older period of record, the wettest month is December. So there's a trend towards November being wetter than December in recent years, but no matter how you slice it, January is a little bit drier than both.

BTW, my actual lows were 20 Monday morning, 21 this morning. For me that's not as bad as last December and I'm not complaining. This may be the first winter I haven't felt like the coldest weather is following me around wherever I move to.

I've been monitoring some of the weather stations in the Strait of Georgia. One called Sisters Island has not dropped below 31F all week - amazing!

Weather Channel table supposed to be last 30 years. I've looked at lots of climate information over the years too, which is why I was surprised they had July and August rainfall exactly the same. Now that I think of it, probably a typo, with the total for one month being duplicated in the next column by mistake.

When I got up this morning at 6 am I had a reading of -3.6 C., however by 7am it had dropped further. My extreme min. temp. today was -4.1C. (25.5 F.) and the high temp. was only -0.2 C. I'm grateful for the beautiful sunny days and the fast these Islands almost always esacpe any cold winds that alot of other areas get hammered with. Looks like we can expect more low temps. throughout the rest of this week. Cheers, Joe

12 degrees on back deck. Bone chilling dry sub freezing. Can feel in bones and sinuses even though house is warm. Hope electricity stays on!

16°F overnight. Now I'm complaining. Why did it have to get that cold?!? Waah waah waah!!!

If everyone lops 10 degrees off the coldest temperature they saw this week they will probably have the effective minimum temperature for their place. Chances are some day it will get at least that cold there again.

I'm gonna have some serious losses, I'm afraid. We hit single digits last night ... echoing Ian: Waah waah waah!!!

My pipes are still frozen, no water.

In 1991 or 1992 it was such a warm winter, only freezing once or twice, balmy. Wouldn't mind one of those. Ever since we planted late December 05 there's been many days of really cold temps every winter.

Praying this transition does not involve freezing rain or lots of snow.

Going to buy a heated birdbath for these subfreezing winter weeks. Poor birds and other wildlife.

>Maybe if I open the window and shout you'll hear meBetter keep it closed, don't let the heat out!

My heat, or the room heat?

"Do not amend planting hole back-fill!"

"Don't double dig!"

"Lasagna gardening is unnecessary!"

"That's not hardy here!"

>>"My heat, or the room heat"?

Hmmm......possible control for climate change there, eh?

But you forgot one: "this is zone 8"!

Yes. And I'm sure I could think of others. There has never been a shortage of people coming here and insisting on the same old falsehoods.