Uncategorized

Last night, well after midnight, we got a storm through. It came with some thunder, though not much where I am, but it came with rain! Since I have my weather station set up I can tell you we got about 2 inches of rain, 1.92 to be exact (so says my weather station). Today we are planning on a balmy low to mid 80’s, they say 83. Either way we have some cooler weather in the forecast. They say, and I’m hoping they are right, that Saturday will be in the 70’s, like 74 for a high. The rest of the days over the next 5 days will be in the low 80’s.

Finally some cooler weather.

But like it or not, it also means we’ve gone from triple digits just a couple of weeks ago, to the 90’s, down to the 80’s in well less than a month. I won’t call that bad, but I will say it doesn’t give a lot of time for plants to adjust to the temperature change. I really do think we are getting dramatic changes in short time periods. Welcome to the new normal?

The weather forecasters didn’t lie! We got rain. It has not been a hard rain, but a light drizzle rain, the kind that soaks into the soil. The temperature has also dropped. I can’t call it cold, but at 9:30pm its 73 degrees here. That is much better than what we’ve been dealing with. Maybe, just maybe, autumn is on its way!

Last week was a nice week of weather. And yet last night parts of central Texas came under Tornado watch. I’m not sure if tornadoes touched down, I’m not finding information. I’ll keep looking.

But today it warm. It’s now just after noon and we’ve already hit 86 in the back yard. To make it even nicer we have high humidity. We’re forecast to hit about 94 today, with tomorrow another 90 degree day. Yes, that is a bit above our normal temperature, but two days from now, on Wednesday we should be down to 77, about our norm. Then the end of the week we should drop down into the mid 60’s.

So how are the plants taking this. That’s a good question. I’m sure some are not happy. But I can say my peas, including snow peas, are producing.

Remember, since I’m planning on moving, I haven’t planted much. The peas are in pots I can take with me when I move. But seed that was left over in the taken down planters are still growing. Actually the carrot tops are getting bigger. Which is amazing since I no longer have a watering system up to water them.

And for all the times they have been saying we’ll get rain here, we have had heavy mist, but not much in the way of coming down from the sky type of rain. It has been measurable mist, the other day it was 0.20 inches of mist/rain. But we’d still like more precipitation.

This wild temperature swing seems to be how central Texas weather seems to be rolling now. Will it continue this way? I have no idea. We shall see.

Meanwhile, welcome to central Texas weather. If you don’t like it, wait a bit, it will change.

The forecast said low 70’s. We didn’t get there. We did get to the mid 60’s. But it’s been cool and drizzly all day. I can’t say we really got rain where I am. It has been more like an all day mist. But now, at 10pm we have measured 0.25 inches, so a quarter of an inch of moisture.

It hasn’t really been rain. It has been just a drizzly mist. You did need windshield wipers if you drove anywhere. But from what I noticed, we only really had one short period of what I could call light rain, and that didn’t last long.

But the good thing is it is moisture, its been low and slow. Its watered plants and the ground. And hopefully it should soak into the ground. That’s what we need.

They are still talking about rain later this week. We’ll see what we get. Hopefully it will actually rain, and not just continue with this mist.

The hoped for rain didn’t materalize here. We got all of 0.04 inches, nothing really. On the other hand we have cold and wind. This morning was a lovely 41 degrees. And now, 10:30 it only 45. Humidity has dropped to 53% so I’m hard pressed to believe more rain will show up today. They have warned that a few small areas could see snow this weekend. How’s that for strange weather timing?

They say this is unseasonable cold. I’d agree with that.

Is this our new normal? If it is, I’m not quite sure what to call it.

Yesterday I did do a good look outside in the yard. You may recall I had mentioned I had taken down my gardening beds. The sides were of wood and a friend removed them for me. Well, I guess there was left over seed on that soil. The grape I had thrown out there trying to get it to die has new leaves. Carrots are coming up. So are some beets. I even saw some lettuce coming up. I do realize without those wooded sides, any water from the sprinkler system is now getting to those seeds. That is probably what is keeping them alive. But it only waters 2x a week, and then early morning (like 2am) and only about 10 minutes. Is that enough? We’ll see.

Yes, we again have some strange weather. Today, Monday it’s a lovely 61 degrees outside, at noon. Saturday we hit a lovely 90 degrees outside. Since the start of the month we’ve had mainly 80’s and high 70’s, with a 90 degree day for good measure.

But wait, there’s more!! Today we will not hit 70. We will stay in the mid 60’s. It is a cold front. And its a bit dry, not much humidity.

Rumor has it we might get rain Thursday night, maybe something Friday morning. But it will not be a lot, if we get anything. Think well less than an inch, probably less than half an inch. But with the possible rain we might get back up to 80 for just Thursday before dropping once again on Friday and next weekend. We could even had daytime highs in the 50’s next weekend. How do you like that weather forecast?

Yes, plants may need to be covered again next weekend. We could get night temperatures back in the 30’s. Hopefully if we get into the 30’s it will be high, not near freezing.

So how is this affecting plants? Well, my two grapes in pots have leafed out beautifully. My rose, in a pot is also leafing out and even has buds. I was apparently gone when the asparagus come up, now they are more like ferns. But I did get shoots. Even the plants in the grow bags are still struggling, but alive. They probably would do better if I remembered to water them. But my snow peas on the deck are blooming.

Such is the growing early season in Central Texas.

Some people have said that when pecan and mesquite start blooming, we’ve passed our last freeze. But remember, no freeze doesn’t mean we can’t get cold, hence the 30ish degrees coming, but not freezes, and not hard freezes. I don’t know if this is true, about the pecan and mesquite, but hopefully its something to consider. Considering our crazy weather, I’m hoping it has some truth to it, maybe we’ve actually had our last freeze. If that’s true, it would be something worth remembering.

Yes, it was but about two weeks ago that we had ice breaking trees. Now we are in the 80’s. Yesterday we hit a lovely 88 degrees. Today we have cooled, if you want to call it that, down to 80. Yes its February in central Texas. They are saying we should get a cool down this weekend, but we don’t really have a good rain in the forecast. And the cool down is not exactly cold. We will be down to the low 70’s during the days, with mid and high 40’s in the evenings. Hardly what you could call cool.

But this is what central Texas weather is all about. Since our last frost date is still on the horizon, its March 27 in this area, we could get cool or cold. But its still a problem for plants. Its always the question, do you start plants outside, or wait for the last frost date? It’s a question each person has to decide. But that’s what gardening is about.

Just an FYI, Cat’s Garden will be on the move. I will be moving in a few months. I’ll post more information later as I get closer to the actual move.

Old man winter has actually come. The other day we got a cold front, temperatures down to freezing. They had expected a drop in temperature but when the forecast is off five-ish degrees, it means that 35 suddenly ends up being 30. In this case we off a bit over 5 degrees. Today for example it should have been above freezing. Instead it hovered between 29-30. And it only hit 30 briefly. Now, our evening temperature is 27. We’ve had freezing rain, some ice and cold, cold weather.

My dog got a short walk, all of about 10 minutes. I didn’t see many people out walking their dogs, but I did see one other. I tried putting my dog in the back yard for potty breaks but we ran into other problems. Because the back deck is raised, and even though it is covered, any moisture on it has turned to ice. To give an idea of what’s happening, my down had to go down stairs to get to the lawn. He made it down with no real problem. But the stairs were so icy he couldn’t make it back up easily. I actually had to find a blanket, I found a fuzzy sherpa type, and holding a corner threw it down so my dog could use it to make his way back up. He did his best to grip the blanket and I helped pull him up. It was an interesting partnership. But he did make it back up and made a beeline to the back door, and into the house.

As for my plants, I expect a few more will die. Today we’ve had enough freeze and thaw cycles for icicles to form on eaves. The weather forecasters have said we should expect more freezing rain, and some ice tomorrow. They are still saying Thursday the weather will begin warming up to high 40’s, almost 50 degrees. This weekend will be in the mid to high 60’s. So what ice we have, will melt and the roads will be in much better shape.

I did watch the news today. They mentioned there were a number of accidents. One included a big rig that jack knifed and an entire road had to be close because it was blocked by the big rig. The accidents today included at least one fatality. One problem that was happening was people would get in a fender bender, then they would step out of their vehicle. The problem with that was that cars were sliding because of the ice and people were getting hit by the skidding vehicles. And of course because of the ice emergency vehicles were going slower. There were a number of accidents, and at least one fire due to weather.

And we’re expecting tomorrow to be worse.

Stay posted for more info.

Well, they got the temperature forecast off by a few degrees. Instead of a low last night of about 35 I woke up to 30 degrees by 9AM today.

The new weather forecast includes just below freezing weather, 29/30 degrees, rain, freezing rain, and possible ice. And the weather forecast is saying possible snow somewhere, probably north of me.

At 10AM (just after) its 30 degrees with 99% humidity. Its like a very cold mist outside, and cold.

UPDATE: its late, 11:15pm and it has dropped to 28 outside. still 99% humidity. Cars and my deck are lightly covered in ice. My dog was even sliding on it a bit. I did take my dog for a walk earlier, it was 30 at the time and I will tell you it was cold. As the day has gone on I’ve gotten notices for possible power outages. So far so good, we haven’t had any, but they could happen still. I’ve put an extra blanket on my bed just in case. But so far the plants on the patio, up close to the house are doing okay. Hopefully they will all survive.

Some of the schools have decided on early dismissal (think let students out early), and will be totally closed. Some will close for Tuesday, some for Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m sure parents are loving that. We’ll see how bad this storm gets.