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All of the rain in California this winter has brought the deserts alive. Flowers are blooming at an incredible rate, including miles of California poppy. You can view beautiful pictures of the blooms from Yahoo here. Nothing like flowers in a dry land!
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
NASA reported this week that their calculated global temperature for February 2017 shows it as the second warmest on record, slightly below the record-setting year of 2016 (which had a strong El Niñ0). NOAA should be releasing their numbers in a few days. You can read about it at https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/news/20170315/.
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The hard freeze the last two nights has had significant consequences for Georgia’s fruit crops. The Packer has done a good job of pulling together an overview of some of the consequences of the bitter temperatures on strawberries, peaches and blueberries. Fortunately, the Vidalia onion crop does not appear to be affected. You can read…
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This is the coolest graph I have seen today. Maybe this week. From retired UGA ag extension agent Rad Yager, who got this from a blueberry producer near Homerville GA. It shows temperature traces from two ambient air sensors plus one that was exposed to irrigation water used for frost protection last night. You can…
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NOAA released their spring outlook this morning. You can view the highlights in a 2-minute video here or read more about it at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/videos/2017-us-spring-climate-and-flood-outlook. The outlook shows that there is a chance of minor spring flooding across portions of the Southeast that are not in drought, mostly due to the possibility of some higher-intensity rains falling on…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
The latest Drought Monitor shows that moderate D1 drought expanded by a row of counties in the Florida peninsula and that D1 drought also expanded in western North Carolina and central Virginia. Severe drought also expanded slightly in Virginia. There were slight decreases in extreme drought in Alabama near Birmingham.
Posted in: Drought -
The temperature at my house this morning got down to 23 F. My azaleas are toast. I’ve seen temperatures below the killing frost level of 28 F down as far south as Valdosta in Georgia and a number of locations in northern Florida also experienced freezing temperatures. I’m curious to hear how your flowering plants…