Storm Bara just hitting the UK. Looks as though there is going to be a lot of damage. Thank goodness the trees are no longer heavy in leaf. D
I hope that this storm carries some warmer air here. It's not nice to have -25ºC together with record high energy prices (1000 €/MWh)
As before Sulev I will blow as hard as I can your way and yes these energy prices are crippling everyone. And at -25° C I really feel for you. D
I visit forums that are mainly US, and I was surprised there were no posts about the tornadoes in Kentucky, except one message from a French member saying this was very sad. As if such disasters had become a terrible routine, and resignation was the mood. Not even the "let's pray" that seems to be what many in the US would say. Since it's not my country, I didn't want to start anything, but really wanted to say "my thoughts are with you"...
It appears that winter has finally arrived! We had a few minor snowfalls over the past few weeks, but now that we are continually in the -5ºC range and lower, my guess is that this will stick for the next 2 1/2 months or so. To add to our joy, our heat pump gave up the ghost at the end of March, and the talented repairman managed to destroy it almost completely during his ham fisted attempt to "fix" it. Long story that I will not bore you with. Next up...the Husqvarna garden tractor with snowblower also needed a vacation, or so it seems. Yep, it won't work either. So yesterday, after far too much messing around, we hightailed it over to Salmon Arm to pick up a walk behind unit. So far, so good, and here's the result of our first attempt. I think as long as we clear the smaller snowfalls quickly that we won't have any trouble.
Goodness, i can only imagine — and knowing what you’ve typed here in forum UBC - living on the beautiful island previously — what else would be beyond your capacity Best wishes and Christmas peacefulness to you and Mrs E and your family friends — your posts are inspiring
Thank you! And season's greetings to you and yours, along with all the good forum members. The only downer is that one of our daughters and her family have all come down with Covid. Val was going to go to Regina to visit, but that's out the window now. So it will be a virtual visit on Facetime.
Well there you have it! Grammy was right! Trouble always comes in 3s she used to say. First your snow blower and then the heat pump and finally your cancelled trip. Our trio of misfortunes lately included flooding in the suite (from the big storm), deer fence taken down (by water and debris from the storm) and now our heat pump has given up the ghost too. I never would have dreamed that I'd be asking Santa for a heat pump for Christmas.
Oh dear, how unfortunate. Oddly enough, the deer here have taken to walking right into our deer screen and they have managed to make two new unplanned entrances. After chatting with two of the local neighbours here, we will likely decide to install an electric fence next year. On the other hand, we might just forget about planting so many flowers to serve as lunch for the deer.
Here is my 10-day forecast in degrees Celsius. All but 3 of my maples are planted in the ground, some as recently as November. Will the snow covering protect them from a week of sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures? It rarely gets this cold here. My collection is mostly Acer palmatum with some japonicum and pictum/truncatum.
our Cdn federal weather is saying unusual cold this coming week, both in Okanagan (yes we spell it that way :) Penticton, BC - 7 Day Forecast - Environment Canada and at Coast (Vancouver bc) and here I looked up your forecast for the non Celsius like me National Weather Service do you have wind outflow from Leavenworth (west of Cashmere) —- or more likely the biting dry cold from Colville (Columbia River) — to your east I am not a maple expert however if they are new — this might be too cold how do the fruit orchards in your community survive ? QUESTION - I am not a plant scientist — so I wonder if sudden temp changes (overnight type change) is more harmful than let’s say, a change over a week or season i imagine there are various factors including season (just budding for fruit orchard crop) , or soil condition, and age of plant etc some old time farmers used to say it is the sudden frozen ground and lack of moisture that does plants in —- i don’t know of any journal articles —- my input is hearsay
The Japanese maples would be fine in the ground at that temp but the potted ones might need some extra protection. Not sure about pictum/truncatum but not guessing they would be much different.
Yes. Cold hardiness is developed by progressively colder chillings, though a single dip below freezing can generate hardiness to significantly lower temperatures than the prior exposure. Roots and even the root collar rarely ever develop cold hardiness much below 10F, pretty much across all species. I have lots of bonsai, including many species of maple. I hustle them into my unheated garage whenever overnight temperatures are forecast to drop below 15F (which doesn't happen very often where I am).
Wenatchee weather is pretty similar to that of Penticton. Cashmere weather is slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer than nearby Wenatchee. I can see it's going to be unnaturally cold all around in the PNW next week. I’ll be sure to wrap some blankets around the pots. I have already moved them under the front porch in preparation. I have only been buying maples for a about a year and a half so I’m just a little nervous!
Good plan, being up close to a building like that is worth a few degrees off the minimum temp. The biggest winter risk with new maples are ones that have come from a grower's greenhouse or polytunnel, that is maybe in a more favourable climate, and have never in their life experienced proper freezing temperatures. If they have soft nitrogen induced growth, so much the worse. However, as pointed out above if there have been some minor freezes already this year it will have helped to promote cold hardiness, even in the first-timers.
We had two night below zero (-2, -3) but we're heading for much milder, wetter days : METEO LOIRET par Météo-France - Prévisions Météo gratuites à 15 jours sur toutes les villes Meteociel - Tendances météo pour Orléans ( 45000 ) Météo agricole Orléans 45000 - Loiret 45 : prévisions heure par heure - Pleinchamp The last link is probably the more accurate : it gives the expected temps at 10 cm and 2 metres from the soil. All in all, very mild now for the end of December.
Both yesterday and today we woke up to about 5 cms of new snow. Temp as we speak is -5.3ºC here under light snow. Temperatures over the next week are forecast to be between -8ºC and -16ºC. Today we expect about 10 cms of snow. Thankfuly, our small snowblower has performed well since we got it! If I don't chat again before tomorrow...MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
Merry Christmas indeed! Dinner over, now just a few presents to wrap... As Alain said it was very cold here, we had almost -5C and had to put a few tender maples inside. But it has warmed up a lot and promises to stay warm, as you can see by our temp chart: We were contacted by this site, infoclimat, to contribute data for their modeling, so now our weather station is available (as charts) at this link: Le Cercueil (Orne - France) | Relevés météo en temps réel - Infoclimat Which I, anyway, think is pretty cool. You can get data in real time from all around by using the interactive map feature. I haven't paid a lot of attention to the forecasting but since it uses the same models as others, I expect it will be pretty good. You can see where the warm air is coming easily enough: as it warmed up, a straight s/sw wind! Unusually steady.
Great, thanks for contributing, I forgot to add the link in my latest post. Here, "Sandillon" (20 km east-south-east) is often about the most accurate observation in summer/autumn: Sandillon (Loiret - France) | Relevés météo en temps réel - Infoclimat Bricy (25 km north) is usually a bit colder but INRA (15 km south) is more or less about the same, and they are closer to what I can record here in winter : Climatologie mensuelle en décembre 2021 à Orléans - INRA | climatologie depuis 1900 - Infoclimat
As i am frequently an user of ‘infoclimat’, that is very good. Thanks for the links. Waiting better time in music... have nice feasts and rest too.
OK, you asked for it ... ;0) A more "classical" version : A version from the 2000's, with a south-American, or even "Brasilian feel" to my ears : The original is a "valse musette" composed by Tony Murena and Joseph Colombo in 1942 : Next chapter : Gus Viseur ;°)