Author: admincatsg

Another cold front

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Today we have a love high of 85 degrees. Its was a warm day, no sweater needed. And yet tonight we should drop to 36 degrees. Here in Austin they are calling for a cold front over the next few days. Dallas, a bit north of us, is looking to get freezing rain. We don’t expect that here. Well, we are looking to drop down to 29 tomorrow, and dropping to 30 Thursday evening.

We are also looking at some rain possible tomorrow evening. It could start with showers around 4pm, and the temperatures will still be above freezing. But by 7pm, it may be down to freezing and turn to freezing rain. That is yet to be seen. But the precipitation shouldn’t last long, it should be over by 10pm.

Its possible Thursday early morning (think just after midnight) we could get more freezing rain. But my mid morning we should be back above freezing so any precipitation should revert back to liquid rain. Let’s hope they are right.

Cold front

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Once again we have strange weather. We have had a beautiful past few days. Even today we were a warm 70 degrees. I think I saw a short period of 72 today here at the house.

And yet, it is now almost 11PM and we have dropped to 34 degrees. We are expecting to drop to 30. So we will cut our temperature in half today. And tomorrow it will be cool. Tomorrow is only expected to be in the low 50, with a low down to 33.

But the weekend will be back up the 60’s and 70’s. Welcome to the wild weather of central Texas.

Nonetheless, I have made sure that plants are covered and or moved to a warmer spot. Hopefully I will not lose anymore plants. My pink lemon tree took a beating in the cold we had a couple of weeks ago. Even though the tree was covered, some of the ends of the branches were frozen and are now brown. I have cut back some of those branches and they do appear to be alive. So I have moved the pot close to the house, and covered it. With the burnt tips cut off it is easier to move and position in a safe place.

One other thing I am also trying, is I have started some seeds in coconut coir mix. I bought a set of 10 compressed blocks. These came with little containers that your put the compressed blocks in, add warm water, and let them rehydrate. The only thing is that where they do rehydrate, you still need to fluff up the coir. In order to make this easier on me, I have been putting the compressed coir into empty salad containers. Since the grocery store sells salad in these clear plastic type of tubs, with a lid to close, I think it will be a good place to start seeds. I put the blocks in, add water, fluff after they had absorbed water. Then if they are too wet, I can leave the lid off and let water evaporate, but I can put the lid on as necessary in order to keep in warmth, and humidity. Its worth a try.

Cold front again

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This has been an interesting weather day. This morning, 9AMish, it was about 56 degrees. Shortly around noon I heard noise outside. It turned out to be hail, even though it was in the low 40’s. The lowest I saw was 41 degrees today. Now, just after 6pm we are up to 45 degrees. Here at home we’ve registered just over 8mph wind. I will say it make taking a walk today cold. It was cold temperatures and a cold wind combined for just feeling freezing cold.

Tonight we should have the joy of getting down to just below 30, like 29 degrees. It looks like it will be a slow drop in temperature from here on down. Considering the clear skies and the cold wind I believe we will make it that cold.

I’ve already covered those plants I feel need to be covered.

I’ve also contacted someone that will be coming over tomorrow to check out my yard. Since I am having trouble getting items I may need, mainly items that are heavy. I will be talking to them about getting them to bring in mulch and getting in spread in areas I need it. I also am looking to see if they might be able to get and install pavers for the back area where I want chairs to go. Having their input to figure out edging in the back would be helpful too.

The problem with the edging is that I need water to drain. I’ve got to come up with something that will work. Hopefully they will have some ideas. I can hope.

Warmth

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Its now 8:45 PM and a lovely 51 degrees outside, with 50 percent humidity. Its made it up to 72 earlier today. For about the next week are expect to be blessed with lovely warm days, and not too cold nights. This weekend we might get one cool night, down to 33 degrees, but that might be it.

All the plants have been uncovered, water is hooked back up. I even took the time to sow some carrot and pea seeds. Hopefully with the weather we are having they will sprout. We shall see.

One thing I am seriously considering is some sort of cold frame. On the Facebook Central Texas Gardeners group some people have mentioned the success they are having with a cold frame over their bed, both in ground and raised beds. From what they are showing, some are home made, and some are purchased cold frames. Basically the idea is to cover the bed, but keep the covering from touching the plants. Think of an a frame over the bed. Some are more like a lean to, but again it is raised so that the cover does not touch the plants. Some of the people are saying that the cold frame keeps the beds considerable warmer.

This person says the temperatures got down to 18, and stayed below freezing for over 36 hours. By the time they made it out to check, the outside temperature was in the low 40’s. But inside the green house it was about 30 degrees warmer. And of course the soil temperature was just over 50 under the cold frame. The did add a set of Christmas lights to help keep the temperature up.

I really should seriously consider getting some sort of cover for my raised beds. Either I need to purchase something or consider making something. If it will help my gardening, and keep the raised beds warmer during the cold it might be something to try.

After the storm

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We’ve made it through the majority of the cold weather that came our way. I say the majority since the nights are still cold. Today we hit a high of 52 here at the house, but tonight is due to be 29. So we still have below freezing nights.

Today, in the warmth I took a walk around the yard, both front and back. I did this for a very specific reason. Since we had gotten rain, and freezing rain, and sleet, things that got wet from the rain had the opportunity to freeze. Since the sun has been out and the temperature has warmed, I looked around to see what areas still have ice. As you might expect, some areas of the roof still have patches of ice. That was pretty much expected and not something I will do anything about. They will eventually melt.

The areas I am looking at the most are areas around the yard that still have ice or left over sleet. Now the sleet pellets froze together so they almost look like snow, but they are frozen with a crust on top. I actually have areas on my driveway and front walk path that still have frozen iced over area. These area still slippery. But since so much has defrosted and melted, it also tells me that at this time of year these areas do not get much sun. Hmmmm. Something to think about and be aware of. Some small patches on my walk way to the house are slick, essentially black ice. I have some ice melt, safe for the dog, that I may use on those patches.

Now you may ask “why bother”? Well I bother because someone that isn’t looking could still slip on these small patches. My dog did today. Its easy to discount those little patches as nothing. But one of those patches is where I back my car out of the driveway. I figure it may be safer to use a melt for my safety than to wait for mother nature. The nights don’t hit the 40’s until just over a week from now. I’d rather melt them and feel safer than leave them as ice and just wait. Now I’m only going to spread ice melt where I walk, not on the mulch that is still frozen. I’m not walking n the mulch. But it has been interesting to look around and see what areas don’t get much sun, or not enough sun to melt ice at this time of year.

I stress this time of year since it would be different during another time of year. Right now my solar lights around my front walk path (an area with ice) don’t receive much sun. You can tell that by the fact they are not real bright at night. And that is way I did this walking around and making note of these still ice covered area.

Such a learning experience.

The day after

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Last night, or rather early this morning, at 1AM I got up. Last night was our coldest night expected. And at 1AM it was 19 degrees outside. How much lower did it actually get, I’m not sure. Considering the forecast for this area was 18 I’m betting we dropped below that.

Yesterday, during the day time, I had a small space heater blowing near where my water softener attaches to the house water. Last year that was where it froze and I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. I wanted to make sure water was running, so when I turned the heater off, it was to run a tap in one of the spare bathrooms. They said to run it farthest from where water comes in. I didn’t choose that faucet since that was attached to the room I was sleeping in and I didn’t want to listen to dripping water all night. But I did pick the next best. The good news is that running the space heater had heated the area near the water softener to 50 degrees, I had a thermometer near it. Even with out it running all night that area was about 45 this morning. And the water was running okay too.

As for today it is now 2:30 PM and here at my house we have made it up to 40 degrees. Ice is melting, and has been sliding off the roof top. Most of it slid off this morning, and I could hear it, especially when I walked outside, or opened the door. Most of it is now gone, other than those areas that don’t get much sun light.

With this temperature most of the glass areas are now wet, but no longer frozen. Some area, those that have had all day sun, those areas are actually dry. Most of the roads area dry too.

It was dry enough I was actually able to walk Linus, my dog. One thing I notice out on my walk was flying icicles. This morning we had some wind, I noted 8mph on my weather station. Consequently, it was shaking trees. That shaking, at least I’m guessing here, was able to dislodge ice from the trees and send it flying. I even have ice pieces in the middle of my driveway. I’m guessing this is a result of the flying ice, since there is no other easy explanation – no tree limbs over my driveway.

As for the yard, the ice yesterday left one of my apple trees bent over. As of right now its still bent over, but it has not broken. So I’m guessing it has survived so far. It doesn’t look like any limbs broke on any of my trees. I consider that a good thing. I shouldn’t lose any trees from this storm.

It was nice getting out for the walk, but it was cold. I was glad to get back into the house. I will say the birds ate all the birdseed I had out. I mean all the bird seed. It was empty, not much stuck to the bottom even. I did refill it today. I’m sure the brds will be happy for that.

Ice!

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We woke up here at my place to 28 degrees, just over 1 inch of precipitation from last night, and ice.

8:30 AM Feb 2, 2022

The bad news is it is not going to get any better today nor tomorrow. Schools are closed both today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday).

Out side is a mixture of ice on tree limbs, and sleet pellets on the ground. We’ve had little rain today, its all freezing rain and sleet.

Some areas around are flooded. I’ve been watching news and they said some areas got 3 inches of rain last night. So a few areas have water over the roads. Hopefully those won’t freeze and stay liquid. But its going for cold, and around freezing in the area all tody and tomorrow. They are calling for a low of 18. Some areas will get wind chills of 0, zero, or thereabouts.

Its not almost 10am as I write this and my weather stations says we are down to 26 degrees.

UPDATE: Its now 1pm, and we are down to 23 degrees

Cold is coming

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We started this morning with a nice mid 50’s. It was overcast but okay weather. That was this morning.

Now, 7pm we have dropped just below 40 and we expect it to continue dropping.

I stopped at the grocery story today after exercise. It was packed with people. I often go to the grocery store after exercise. It makes sense since one grocery store is about 3 doors down, the other grocery store is on the way home. Either way, it makes sense to go to the grocery store after exercise. What this means is I know how busy it usually would be today, at these grocery stores. Well, today was definitely different. If you didn’t get a basket out in the parking lot, they were hard to come by. Some items were out, clean shelves.

And there were a lot of people in the stores. Instead of maybe 2 people in line, there were 6-8. Carts were full, some with what I thought were strange items. One couple had a card loaded with large 2 liter soda bottle, and I mean loaded. They were stacked upright, then stacked upside down in between the upright bottles. And it was a full cart. Small cartons of milk were all gone. I was lucky enough to snag a medium size bottle, but I saw one guy trying to carry 4 large gallon size jugs of milk. Some canned goods were sold out too.

I’m sure now at this time of night, even thought the stores would normally be open, I’m sure they are pretty cleaned out and empty.

I’ve even heard schools are closed both Thursday and Friday. The new forecast says a low of 26 tonight. Tomorrow will be a high of 29 with a low of 17. Then Friday it will be a high of 36 with a low of 19. Since we have rain already, albeit light precipitation, it will probably turn into ice. They are expecting freezing rain tonight.

Earlier today, before I left for exercise I covered plants, turned off water, and covered the hose bibs. Since yesterday we got over an inch of rain, I’m not worried about the plants needing watering. Hopefully everything will make it through this cold. We’ll see.

Rain

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My lovely Linus, my dog, needed a potty break early this morning. At like 4:40AM this morning. When I got up to take him out, I noticed the rain gauge said we had 0.11 inches of rain. It had just started to rain. By morning, when I got up, have had over an inch of rain. We even had a bit of thunder. Now, at 11pm we have acquired 1.39 inches of rain. Most of the day has just been overcast, with just occasional rain showers. Its been in the mid 50’s all day, and still is. Tomorrow should be similar, both in temperature and in possible rain. But by Wednesday, the day will be in the 60’s, but by that evening, maybe overnight we should drop to below freezing. Wednesday night we expect a hard freeze, 28 degrees. Thursday the day time temperature should be just above freezing, at 33. But that night is expected to be down to 19 degrees. Friday won’t be much better. The day time temperature will again be just above freezing, with the night below freezing. It will be a cold week ahead.

Additionally Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we expect to have some rain too. So it could be we end up with ice, sleet, maybe snow (not in the forecast). I will keep you posted, but its going to be a cold wet week.

Cold start

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My wonderful dog needed an early morning potty break, 6 AM early. At that time the temperature outside was 23 degrees. Now at just past 10:30 AM we have risen up to 43. We are shooting for a high of 54 today. The nice part is we should be above freezing temperatures for night for the next week. Also hopefully we will get some rain later in the week. That would be nice.