Winter Weather

[Roma]

Two Days of rain and the snow has almost gone.  Everything is flooded now.  I have a small stream and waterfall which I didn't have yesterday.  My cold frame is also flooded  The bulb pots at one end are completely submerged.  I hope the seed pots at the other end which is slightly higher are not under water.

[Gabriela]

Two Days of rain and the snow has almost gone.  Everything is flooded now.  I have a small stream and waterfall which I didn't have yesterday.  My cold frame is also flooded  The bulb pots at one end are completely submerged.  I hope the seed pots at the other end which is slightly higher are not under water. (Attachment Link)

Very sorry for the horrible weather you have out there. These are regular events in our climate but I realize how devastating must be for all - people and plants who are not used with them.
It will be interesting to see how some of the tender species you grow in UK react in the long term.

[Robert]

Robert,

This is not a rule, just single observation, but you get the warm weather at the same time we do. What about Midwest and East - do they get colder?

Jecek,

I tend to watch the 500 mb upper air patterns. My experience has been that the upper air flows are better indicators of patterns. The anomalous upper air, high pressure pattern in the eastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of North America has been very unusual during the past decade. This pattern has created condition where western North America has been very dry and warm, and eastern North America has been cold and wet. There are other patterns, as well. Anomalies in the North Atlantic pattern were predominant during the Little Ice Age.

I guess I have not answered your question, however it is warm (average temperatures) here at the moment. I will be glad to share data with you if it helps with your current hypothesis. I have over 30 years of weather data for the El Dorado County, California farm. I have over 10 years of data for our Sacramento home and I am currently recording remote data in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I addition, my bother is a climate scientist and has been for decades. I can also ask him where to find information that might be helpful to you. Your idea is very interesting. Keep me posted on your findings.

[Harald-Alex.]

After the heavy nightfrosts and snowfalls of the last weeks the weather-prognose is: spring is coming with temperatures till 16 °C!
The first snowdrop looks out and so next week our snowdrop-garden will be reopened!

[Jacek]

Here +10 C today and some sun. Spring is clearly coming.

I do not know where to document damages and losses caused by recent winter surge - may be here, in this thread. In our part of Europe such losses are normal, but in Britain not so much I believe, So your experience may be even more interesting.

As I still cannot move freely - today I took crutches (to walk), camera with telephoto lens (to be able to shoot from a distance) and bucket upside down (to sit on) and went to the garden. Not everything was photographed - it is still easier to look only - you don't need both hands free.

1. Corydalis flexuosa. Its winter foliage was untouched until recently. Now it is only partly damaged. No problem then. Liden, Tebbitt, Zetterlund suggest in their book hardiness down to -15 C, but I can assure it survived winter 2012 with temp down to -30 C, but with significant damage (not just leaves).

2. Ipeheion (Tristagma) uniflorum. Strong smell of rotting garlic means the leaves are dead. This is not the first time and I know they will resume growth soon and the underground portions of leaves are OK. The plant is absolutely hardy down to -30 C - remarkable for a plant coming from a frost-free country.

3. Snowdrops. Here situation is diverse. G. nivalis - no damage.
G. elwesii from garden centre - no damage, but a few leaves are damaged by desiccation (result of frost + sun; there was no snow cover)
I have a few hybrids which I cannot really name - but certainly the cheapest ones (Magnet?, S.Arnot? possibly others - don't remember). Some degree of damage is visible. For instance on the picture below the flowers on left are probably OK, on the right - dead.


The below flower is also dead


G. woronowii - severe damage, but I don't think all over-the-ground growth is dead, needs more observation.

4. Crocuses. No visible destruction of leaves, yet. The flower buds that were much advanced are dead. Here C. etruscus Rosalind, which was most advanced:


C. etruscus Zwanenburg was less advanced:


And C. tommasinianus generally showed only noses of flower buds and except very few they seem OK. Look here - three buds seem healthy, but this needs observation:



All other crocuses were not showing flower noses before frosts.

[Jacek]

5. Cyclamen coum. hederifolium and purpurascens - leaves are flaccid and somewhat coiled. Hopefully it means only they are short of water because deeper soil is still frozen. Open flowers of C. coum have damaged petals, but flower buds seem OK. Here - C. purpurascens:


6. Eranthis hyemalis - no damage, also the more advanced


8. Last but not least, Crocus speciosus. I have only the commercial plants and their leaves are always very advanced before the winter and are often damaged. Not this time.

[ian mcdonald]

Roma, a nice water feature and not a Charlie Dimmock in sight.

[Leena]

Here the temperatures have risen to above freezing, +2 C right now. Next week is going to be like this and hopefully the snow will start to melt down, though forecast says it will be again below freezing (even more than -10C) the third week of March. I'm hoping to see some snowdrop noses before that  , though it would be better for plants to stay still under snow cover.

[Robert]

Here in Northern California the weather is extremely mild. With a strong southwesterly flow, subtropical moisture is moving into the region. The rainfall is remaining south of our area, There is a bit of precipitation falling in the Sierra Nevada, mostly in the form of rain. Our high temperature today at our Sacramento home was 63 F, 17.2 C. The low temperature was a balmy 52 F, 11.1 C. Even in the Sierra Nevada the temperatures are mild. 47 F, 8.3 C at Loon Lake today, 6,400 feet, 1951 meters, with a low of 31 F, -0.5 C. There was a bit of rain 0.14 inches, 3.5 mm.

Much colder and wet weather is in the forecast. 

[brianw]

I often use wunderground for temperatures; at least when posters tell us approximately where they are. Not having much luck posting a screen dump image so try this

https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap?lat=57.13999939&lon=-2.0999999&cm_ven=localwx_wumap

[Robert]

The wild swings in our weather continue. Moist subtropical air has moved into Northern California. We have gone from record to near record heat, to record cold, and now back to near record heat. It was 76 F, 24.4 C, at the El Dorado County, California farm yesterday; 77 F, 25 C, at our Sacramento home.

In the Sierra Nevada Mountains it is no different. It was 55 F, 12.8 C, on Peavine Ridge, 5,146 feet, 1569 meters, yesterday at 11:30 a.m. On 11 March was 57 F, 13.9 C. The snow is going quickly. There was 58.5 cm of snow on the ground on 8 March, with a water equivalent of 5.71 inches, 145 mm. On 12 March it was down to 30 cm of snow, with a water equivalent of 4.34 inches, 110 mm.

[Maggi Young]

SRGC Subscription Secretary, Christine ( ChrisB in the forum) lives in Northumberland, where they have had  quite bad weather - her garden was under  a foot of snow  and she feared the worst for so many plants which were in full flower - things  have  not turned out  to be as bad as she  thought - thank goodness!

[Leena]

How lovely and inspirational view in the second picture!

Last spring a year ago was (also) unusually cold here and ground froze early in prevous November. I was so sure I had lost many snowdrops when they were not coming up in March like previous years, but luckily I was wrong and all were just very late because of the cold. This year when again it is again cold I hope I'm mentally better prepared to wait patiently, and believe that all is well and plants know when it is safe to come up.

[ian mcdonald]

I think prolonged frost and wet does our wild plants more harm. A good covering of snow protects the plants, especially alpines in the upland areas.

[Jacek]

Snow cover is essential for geophytes and low growing plants in our climate. It does protect root systems of larger plants, but not their crowns. On the other hand - excessive snow for long time may squash delicate bulbs foliage or even break woody plants if they are not flexible enough.

There is one more factor - desiccating effect of sun on wintergreens (or early/prematurely growing bulbs) during frosty periods. Importance of this factor grows as the season progresses and sun is higher on the firmament. There is good example in my garden. During recent winter surge (Feb/March) we had no snow. Leaves of hardy Cyclamen purpurascens are dry, but not all. Leaves of plants growing in places protected from direct sunlight in winter are OK. Even on a single plant leaf survival depends whether it was north or south facing (north - better).

In such cases the minimum temperature may not be most important - length of frost and amount of sunshine may be crucial.