If you have a home garden or plant according to the USDA plant hardiness zones, you might be interested in this recent article from NOAA’s Climate.gov (link). In the story, the impacts of changing normals every ten years on planting zones is explained and maps show the differences between the old planting dates and the new ones. Normals are updated every ten years; the current ones cover 1981-2010. However, some gardening manuals still use the older maps for their planting advice, which might be misleading since the new normals are warmer than the old ones as temperatures have continued to rise since the 1970s.
Even if you use planting date maps to help determine when you start your garden, however, it’s still important to watch for the weather forecast because a late frost can undo all your hard work! This might be true this weekend in parts of the Southeast, when cold air is expected to temporarily return to the region.
