Lee,

I use the Weather Channel's website and they've yet to be wrong so far. They are saying that our low next week (May 3rd) will be 49. Now, what follows in the few days after that remains to be seen, but that's what I'm going with now.

For the last 6 months I have followed a weather blog for the Colorado mountains on a daily basis and they look 5 to 10 days in advance and tell what various models are saying. The Euro is more accurate about 2/3 of the time for their stuff, but for some types of systems there are other models that predict better. Run to run consistency and model to model consistency are what he stresses.

All that said, I still can't believe it will get cold enough to snow in my part of the state in May, but if the Euro says it, then it is possible.

So the Weather Channel website 9 days ago said it was going to be 30 last night in Edmond? I'm going to guess they did not. Please use what ever weather forecast source you feel comfortable with. I'm just trying to let people know what may be coming.

I'd bet that the Weather Channel website forecast will start coming down in the next few days. They use a near 50% model output and 50% Climatology blend for their forecasts past 5 days. If the models keep their continuity, that forecast of 49 will end up being way too high.

I would prefer their forecast to be correct, but the weather models don't show it right now. Maybe the models will flip back to a warmer scenario for late next week. I hope so.

Lee

Scott,

It's one of the things that makes predicting the weather so challenging. We know the Euro is usually going to be better, but it isn't always. And a lot of times we don't know when that worse performance will happen.

For late next week, both the Euro and the GFS (U.S. model) changed to the cold scenario yesterday. Both models show a similar pattern, with the difference being how far south and west the core of the cold air makes it. It looks like 3-4 model runs in a row show it. So as of now, we have model consistency and some run-to-run consistency. That could change, and I hope it does.

Lee

Lee, Thanks for being willing to be the bearer or bad tidings.

Let's not shoot the messenger y'all.

Look at how often the Euro has been right lately. That is what bothers me. I happen to hope it is wrong this time because I don't want to have to drag out all that row cover and cover up the garden beds again next week. I'll do it if the forecast indicates I should.

Lee Grenci has a great blog on WU today about snowfall occurring at temperatures above 32 degrees. It is very eye-opening. Sometimes it seems like the more I learn about the weather, the less I know.

I do know that I am ready for some nice, consistently mild weather for a while before summer arrives and we get too hot and stay too hot for too long.

I'll keep on gardening as if normal weather lies ahead, but I have all my buckets and agricultural fabric and could cover up everything again if I have to. I also keep PVC pipe and rolls of clear 4mm and 6mm plastic in the garage in case I have to hastily construct low tunnels over plants to protect them from snow. Living here in OK, we have to be ready to deal with unusual weather of all types.

Dawn

I can believe it. I cant remember the year for sure.... 1996 or -1997 maybe? Anyway, it was April and it was 90something degrees one day and 30 the next with snow. My mother says she can remember snow in May a few times as a child. So, i believe it can happen.

I only have 2 tomatos in giant patio containers right now, i have buckets over them right now. It worked well last night so it should work again tonight in case of another frost.

If we get snow though, what do i do? These pots are WAY too big for me to move.

Thanks for the weather updates Lee, i always read them.

Emma

Sorry...this was another double-post. I'm getting good at that.

This post was edited by wxcrawler on Wed, Apr 24, 13 at 23:00

Emma, A lot would depend on how cold the weather is when it snows and how big the plants are and the buckets are. What you want to watch out for is contact between any part of the plant and the bucket. Any place the plant touches the bucket, the cold temperatures can kill the plant. Always make sure your bucket is big enough the plant doesn't touch the bucket.

There's not much else you can do if snow is going to fall. You would keep the buckets over the plants, but it would help the plants stay even warmer if you put a heavy blanket or sleeping bag over the buckets. That gives you an extra layer of protection. Also be sure the plants are well-watered because dry roots suffer from freeze damage more quickly than moist roots.

If you can drag them up close to a south-facing or west-facing wall, that helps too because those walls absorb heat from the sunlight all day and create a slightly warmer microclimate for your plants.I have some pots that are too heavy to lift, but I can push, pull and drag them around on the patio if I have to.

Before next year, I'm going to put those big pots on platforms with caster wheels so I can roll them where I want them to go.

We don't have to panic right now....we can wait and panic if the models still show snow a couple of days from now and then a couple of days after that. Models can flip-flop a lot, but as the highlighted day grows closer, they tend to settle down and show consistency. Lee will tell us when it is time to panic. : )

Dawn

Lee, thanks so much, I depend on your post heavily. I know it if tough predicting the weather, our forecast has changed 5 degrees today, and where I live it may even drop another 5 degrees. I may wait until after the next cold spell to plant.

I can remember the old timmers when I was a child saying that if you get your first tomato by the 4th of July you are doing good. I may not be able to plant before the 4th of July.

Larry

Lee, Thanks, I too appreciate your info.

Larry, I always shoot for the fourth of July and I have been making it so far. Last year I beat that by a couple of weeks but only with a very few plants.

The Mesonet has Jay at 33, the Grove airport. Intellicst, and NWS is showing Grove at 37 degrees, right now at 12:50. My garden looks like a grave yard for old bedding. I have row cover on 3 beds and the rest of them are covered with sheets. I had row cover for everything, but I thought I would only need covers for one event so I just grabbed the sheets from my gardening cabinet that I used to keep my squash from freezing last Fall. That one event has turned into 3 so far with probably another to go.

I'm glad most things are covered because it isn't looking good.

I sprayed everything I could reach with water after dark and I just went outside to cover something I forgot. Everything is sparkling. The pansies are sparkling. I hope it doesn't hurt them because they have been beautiful. The windshield of my truck has a layer of frost. Even though my thermometer which has an outdoor sensor on the house says 37 there is a frost every where. I guess I need to move the sensor.

the cover on my non working hot tub has frost on it. My outdoor sensor (on the front porch support) says 40 and NOAA says 38

I am ready for morning temps in the high 40's and lets get real, I really want 50's for the lows.

Moni

Oh ya'll are scaring me...especially Moni..I didn't cover last night.

Hopefully everyone's plants made it through last night with little to no damage. With the right conditions, frost can form with air temperatures as high as 39 or 40. Most thermometers are a few feet above ground. Believe it or not, with the right conditions, you can have a 5-8 degree temperature change just in the first couple of feet above the surface. So with night's like last night, it was probably 32 degrees right at the surface, and 35 or higher just a foot or above it. And 37 or higher at thermometer level (5-6 ft.).

Lee

Thanks for the update Lee, I very much appreciate them. But dang, I can't believe it might freeze again. If we continue to have these late freezes annd then the summser is anything like last year then I am going to be so mad!

Also for what it's worth, I am also a meteorologist (albeit NOT a forecaster, a research meteorologist) and 99% of the time I trust the ECMWF (Euro) models above all the others. I have seen it outshine the other models time and time again. I no longer have access to the ECMWF forecasts so I am very glad that Lee updates us on it. i also think the NWS forecasters do a fine job in difficult conditions, especially when the model forecasts are diverging!

I keep telling my tomatoes and peppers that they can go in the ground soon... I don't think they will trust me on this much longer.

I had frost last night, not sure about the temp. It looks like next Wed. night may be cold also.

So far, this growing season has been a yo yo.

I'm ready for this to end. My peppers are outgrowing their light shelf. I had planned on planting them this weekend, but I may hold out. I'm going to go ahead on everything else, though. If I plant seeds now and they freeze next week, I'll just have to replant them, which is where I'd be if I waited anyway.

You never know what's going to happen even if it does freeze, though. Night before last, our low was 26 degrees. I had covered all of my tomatoes except one. The wind had broken it, so I'm going to replace it anyway. I checked my plants yesterday afternoon and that plant was just fine. It's funny because I had been worried about my covered plants surviving the cold and there's this uncovered plant that's just fine. That's certainly not an endorsement to stop covering your plants, but I'll definitely worry less about my covered plants now.

Leslie

Thanks for the heads up, Lee! I still plan to put my tomatoes, zukes, cukes and canteloupe in this weekend and will have buckets and sheets and blankets at the ready if need be. I will hold off on the peppers for a bit more to see what develops.

Thanks for the heads-up, Lee! Glad we have an expert forecaster in the forum. I am usually always guilty of planting too early...this year, I only got the opportunity to torture flowers, LOL. I went nuts & bought a ton of seeds & planted them the first week of April. I have a pot of jalapeno peppers that I've been bringing inside overnight with the recent frosts. So far, my flower seedlings seem to not really be too bothered by the cold temps.

Seriously though, thanks for keeping us all on top of the weather situations. This time of year, living in Oklahoma, I think most of us with any sense are glued to the weather...not sure whether to expect severe storms, hail, tornadoes, snow, frost, or what! Always nice to have an expert in your corner helping out! :)

Aaagh...! I didn't cover last night either :( I do hope things are ok - I did put my little tomato plants and peppers back into my shed, so they should be fine, and I still had row cover over my lettuces, etc., but...night before last I hadn't covered my potatoes and they're a little sad looking. I know they should probably bounce back, but I wish they weren't more tortured last night! Oh...and I'd taken the buckets off of the peonies (!) I'm afraid to look tonight.
I don't want summer yet, but I would like it about 75 in the daytime and 60 or so at night - that I could live with!

Sharon

I am not sure how my first post here came across, but I was meaning to say that I appreciate the accuracy of the raw models and those like Lee and two blogs I read daily to tell me what is likely 6+ days into the future. The local stations "water down" the forecast like Lee mentioned the Weather Channel does until it is a sure thing, which usually means 2-3 days in advance only. I really need to know what is likely and what is possible for 10 days out. The traditional forecast outlets just don't provide what I need, but I understand why they have to do it that way.

FYI, I read the Tulsa Channel 6 morning weather blog daily at least on weekdays. I also read the Opensnow.com Colorado forecast blog daily during the snow season. I even check this website daily in the last couple of weeks just to see if Lee posted about the long-range forecast. Plus I run the GFS-NAM precip forecast twice a day even though I don't really know what I doing clicking around on it. I am a weather nerd.

Oh yea, there was ice on the surface of our goats' water bucket this morning at 7:00. I didn't check the garden, though.

I put a min/max thermometer outside in the garden last evening and this morning it showed a low of 28. And DH who got out early saw quite a bit of frost. The potatoes which he had covered with leaves were only partially protected. The wind blew some of the leaves off so some of the plants got nipped. Others came through ok. I just hope the fruit trees made it.

I have been watching next Thursday night for a few days. It looks like the one that has the potential to drop into the danger zone. Right now the lowest prediction I've seen is 38. Tomorrow Don Day will give a forecast for next week. He is the most accurate in this area. I will try to catch it and see what he has to say. Depending on his predictions I may start dropping plants in the ground this week. But if it looks like it will drop close to freezing I will wait. The plants will grow more in the lean to than they will in the cool soil. Soil temps have actually dropped a few degrees over the past 10 days. Hoping to see a rebound with the upper 80 possibly 90 degree days ahead. The corn farmers are on hold. This time last week every forecast had Tuesday night 35-38. And we were in the 20's. A low of 33 this morning. I also have the hot frames I can move plants too if I need too. I know all too well it doesn't do any good to rush the plants in the ground. I'm sure we will see 100 degrees by mid May.

Jay,

We hit 28 degrees this morning so it was colder here than it was there. How strange is that? Love County's Mesonet station had the lowest low for this morning when I looked at the map, but I didn't look later in the day to see if any corrected data had popped up. Sulphur and Tahlequah bottomed out at 29. We also had the highest high--73 at the mesonet station but it hit 75 at our house. From 28 this a.m. to 73/75 this afternoon was a pretty big change.

I wish the weather would settle down so we could get on with planting the warm-season crops. I do have tomato plants in the ground and corn, but have been waiting to see what next week's forecast does before I plant anything more. My pepper plants either need to go into the ground or I need to pot them up to bigger pots if I am going to hold them for a while longer.

Our soil temps are decent and our high temps are nice, but once or twice a week we hit the lower 30s or upper 20s. I hope you don't see the 100s in May...but it isn't like any of us have any say in the matter. We usually don't warm up as early as you do so I don't expect 100s until June.

Even some potatoes that were covered with a row cover that should have given them 4 degrees of freeze protection had fairly significant freeze damage this morning when I uncovered them, so I believe the temperature was lower at the ground level than the 28 degrees recorded at 5' above ground.

I'm trying to remember the last year we had a halfway normal weather/gardening year at our house. Maybe 2010. It seems like it was 100 years ago.

Dawn

Lee,

Just as an FYI...our local TV met has included the cold low temperatures in our forecast for late next week. I guess that means the model runs have been consistent enough for long enough that he thinks it is going to happen.

He's showing the general Texoma area slightly colder than our NWS Point Forecast, but then his is a more general forecast for a much wider area.

Uggghh. I was hoping the models were wrong and would change, but had seen enough model runs posted on WU today to know what was coming.....

I guess I won't plant any more warm-season plants for the next few days. Enough is planted now that it takes every bit of floating row cover we have to protect them all on a cold night/morning.

Dawn

I was uneasy also and did not plant. I did till the north garden, but it was too wet and we got more rain just after I tilled.

Larry

Hi Dawn,

There is enough consistency for me. The models run every 6 hours, and there have been a couple runs here or there that show much less cold air. But the following run has been back to cold. It's hard to say how cold, and there is still time for a change. But I don't see that happening....hope I'm wrong.

It could be one of those systems where it stays cold and cloudy/drizzly and in the low 40's day and night. That sounds miserable, but we'd be considered lucky. But, if we get quicker clearing, then we'll be back down well into the 30's. It's hard to say what will happen. We'll probably have a better idea by Monday.

Most NWS forecasters will rarely forecast an extreme event like this 6 or 7 days in advance. They'll play it "safe" until it gets to 3 or 4 days out. That's just how it is for most of them. They don't want to "stick their necks out too far".

If the models stay consistent, the NWS forecast temps will be considerably colder for Friday. You'll probably notice the forecasts get steadily lower every day until then.

Lee

Thanks, Lee. If there is enough consistency for you, that's good enough for me.

I'll refocus my efforts from planting to weeding, mulching, pruning, etc. until the weather calms down a little. I am grateful I have a greenhouse because I might get cranky if I had to carry all these flats of plants back inside the house while waiting for the right weather to arrive.

The worst thing is that when it is cold and rainy and I'm stuck inside, I drag out my seed crate and sow more seeds in flats. At the rate I'm going, I'll have enough plants for 400 gardens.

Larry, Does it ever stop raining there? I'd love to have all the rain you're getting as long as I had well-drained soil. Sadly, you don't have well drained soil so I know that too much rain is a huge problem for you.

You know, when that gut feeling says "don't plant yet", it always is smart to listen to it. When I ignore that uneasy feeling, I always end up regretting it.

We have had some record lows in our area this week and at the rate things are going, it wouldn't surprise me if we have more.

These temperatures frustrate us now, but in the hot spring of 2011, we would have loved to get a break from the above-average temperatures and hot winds that were plaguing us at planting time.

Dawn

Dawn, the rain does seem strange. Looking at the charts for western Arkansas, we finished 2012 down almost 12". The rainfall this year, through March was 126% of normal, giving us + almost 2 1/2" for 2013. If I add those figures together it sounds as though we are still down over 9" for the long term. There is no place to put the extra rain, ever the lake is full. In Feb. it was down 12'(it has never been that low before). I am not complaining because so many people need the rain. I have a gut feeling that when the rain stops, it will stay stopped for a good while, and when it stops I will be watering within two weeks.

Larry

From the WeatherChannel...

Keith

Here is a link that might be useful: Weather Channel Video