Wow - Dawn that is a great site I am already reading and am living on information overload...

Mitch,

When I posted the link, you were one of the "new to Texas" gardeners that I had in mind.

It is a MOST helpful website, and, for what it is worth, after living here for a decade, I'd say the freeze dates, i.e. "1 in 10 years......2 in 10 years.....5 in ten years" have proven to be accurate for our county.

Remember, though, that averages are only averages.

Our FIRST year here, the first frost hit around Sept. 30th, and I wasn't really expecting it. We did build a temporary "hoop house" structure over 6 tomato plants (in just an hour or two), protected them from that freeze and then had good weather for another 4 to 6 weeks.

There's also been at least two years when we the first fall freeze was VERY late.....the day before Thanksgiving one year, and about a week or so before Christmas another year. In the latter, we actually had an "official" freeze in November, but it was windy enough at our house that the frost didn't do very much damage, and then the flowers and veggies hung in there until almost Christmas.

One thing that has surprised me, though, is how MUCH colder it gets here in southern OK than it did in N. Texas. I am only 80 miles north of Fort Worth, so I expected some colder weather and a little more snow. I NEVER expected I'd see the temperature go down to 1 degree, which it did a couple of years ago. Luckily, the cold spells are normally not very long-lasting.

You're farther north than I am, and you should be prepared for an occasional ice/sleet/freezing rain storm that may bring down trees, shrubs and power lines. Parts of Oklahoma have had very severe ice storm damage the last couple of years, so keep that in mind.

The weather here is seldom dull.

Dawn

Wonderful info, Dawn! I'm looking forward to having the time to sit and look at it later this week. I know the fall dates usually vary. I learned the hard way about the typical Easter weekend freezes here right after I moved from Texas. My Dad kept warning me not to put out my veggie seedlings, and I did anyway. Lost all of them! So I've learned to take in all the info I can. Helps to have something that gives a lot of info :)

Kathy

All those years in Texas we had snow once, and ice maybe for 4 or 5 hours each year... I have a LOT of preperations to make for Winter.

Did I mention I hate winter? i keep saying this will not be that bad.

Kathy,

The OCS has lots of other great info on its website too. I only linked the county pages, but there's a lot of other stuff too. ANYTHING that helps us understand our weather here is so appreciated.

Mitch,

It seems like we had quite a bit of snow our first 2 or 3 or 4 years here, roughly 1999-2001 or 2002, but haven't had much lately. Since then, though, we've had relatively mild winters here south of the Arbuckles. It has been a different story north of the Arbuckles, though, but I still think the last 3 years or so it has been more ice than snow.

We are so far south that we've never lost power or had trees come down from the ice, BUT houses only about 3 miles north of us have had ice damage at least twice since we moved here.

Oklahoma winters will be a bit colder than what you were used to in Texas, but it is a very up-and-down type thing with periods of cold mixed with very nice, mild weather.

Dawn

Dawn - you have been an over the top wonderful help. I am just loving these wonderful cool days - so many things blooming again and .. um getting much much bigger.

Thanks dawn - you have been an over the top help already.

I am loving this wonderful fall weather!