and in Kingston it is a wonderful 50

This post was edited by ponderpaul on Sat, Mar 2, 13 at 16:21

Carol, Your weather is stuck in winter, isn't it?

The wind here was cold today, but our temperature finally made it up to 54. The mid- thru late afternoon hours were nice.

Tomorrow will be even better with a forecast high of 69, followed by a forecast high of 79 for Monday. Then we return to late winter/early spring weather with a forecast high on Tuesday of 54. I'm glad the temperatures will drop on Tuesday. I'm not ready for highs in the upper 70s and neither are my cool-season plants.

Our weather lately is a roller coaster....couple of warm days....couple of cool days...over and over again. It is like a teeter-totter.

Dawn

The last I checked it was up to 46 today but the wind was cold until afternoon. We are told the temp will be better for the next few days, getting up to 70 in a couple of days. I still have some potatoes and onions to plant, the cold weather plants are too small to put out.

I am afraid to check the weather, it seems that the forecast changes every time you look at it.

Larry

It was beautiful today in OKC. The temp said 50 degrees, but it was lovely.

Dawn...the weather men are throwing around the word "flooding" for the end of the week storms... :)

Lisa

Larry, It was that way here, too, yesterday with a horrible wind chill that made it feel so cold. I worked out in the greenhouse for about an hour in the morning (at least it was warm in there) and then worked in the garden for only 3 or 4 hours in the afternoon. It was too cold.

I think today will be the same. We are supposed to hit 71 degrees today, but the wind is blowing pretty steadily and I expect it will feel chilly like it did yesterday. The afternoon might not be too bad, especially if the wind backs off a little.

Lisa, I am watching that storm like a hawk. I look at the forecast models several times every day, and then go over and check the 5-day and 7-day Qualitative Precipitation Forecast. Our local TV met keeps cautioning us to not get overly excited because the system is still a long way out and "things could change".

I'd love to see an inch or two of rain, but "flooding"? No, please, no. This is exactly what happened last year. I planted onions and potatoes as a big rainy spell was approaching and then we had 6" of rain in the next 2 or 3 weeks and the soil, already wet from good winter rainfall, stayed heavily saturated and a lot of them rotted. To prevent that from recurring, I planted the onions in a raised bed that sits higher in the garden this year and which drains better than where they were last year, so the onions should be okay as long as we don't get 5 or 6" of rain in one day. The potatoes also are going into a much higher bed in the old Peter Rabbit Garden by the potting shed. That area gets slammed by pests from the adjacent pasture in summer months and isn't worth much for growing in summer unless you enjoy battling grasshoppers and spider mites, but it is great for cool-season crops.

Y'all are more likely to get heavier rain up there in central OK than we are down here, so far. That's true most of the time, so I'm using to seeing y'all get flooding rains while we get a quarter-inch or half-inch or whatever.. If we are going to get really heavy rain of the flooding type down here, it usually happens in April-June or in the late summer when the remnants of a hurricane or tropical storm travel this far north dumping plentiful rain as they go in August or September. I love rain and we need it desperately, but I'm hoping we don't get too much at the end of this week. I'd like enough for the cool-season veggies,flowers and herbs to benefit from it without dying via waterlogged roots.

Are your larkspurs and poppies up yet? Mine are popping up all over and have been for the last couple of weeks. They are a little early this year, but I'm not complaining. The Texas Bluebonnets bloomed and reseeded really well last year, so there are little ones popping up everywhere along the driveway. Their success hinges on us not having too much spring rain because they are in an area with more clay than they generally like. They don't tolerate the clay as well as the poppies and larkspurs do, so with them it is a hit and miss thing where they are better in dry winters/springs than in wet ones.

I've linked a website that has the 5-day and the experimental 7-day QPF. You can click on either of those to enlarge them. As the week goes on, we can watch as the forecasted rainfall amounts rise or fall. I like the QPF, but I take it with a grain of salt. Last year, the 1-day QPF forecasted 2.7" of rain for us and I was excited beyond belief, thinking drought relief was going to occur. Ha! It missed us and we got nothing. Nothing. I don't take the QPF too seriously since then but I do look at it so I have an idea of what they think will happen.

I was digging grass out of a pathway in my big garden...about halfway down the long sloping garden and the soil in that pathway was incredibly cold and wet, especially compared to the soil in raised beds on either side of the pathway. When I saw how wet it was, I told myself that the last thing we need is more rain. Honestly, though, we always need more rain so if it falls I will be happy.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: NCEP Webpage

The difference between the 5 day and 7 day map is crazy. That is a lot of rain in 2 days. I'll believe it when I see it, but I hope I don't see it. That much rain all at once isn't going to help anything.

Leslie