From my days in western NY...freezing rain was unusual. I think the ground, trees, buildings, etc, have to be freezing before the rain falls. So hopefully we don't have to worry about that.

I don't know about covering the plants. We're suppose to get to 31F and I'm not going to cover because I'd worry the wet sheets would get too heavy.

This should be interesting. Past couple of nights the forecast here has been for lows above 32F and it's been below that. If that happens tonight I don't know what to expect in the morning. Snow I guess.

So I check Weather Underground again and now the forecast is like 43F low, Wed night down to 32F. But they also report the current temp is 48F but the reporting stations near me are saying 40-44F. Other stations nearby are currently reporting 58-60F.

I'm guessing the forecast is for maybe all of Phoenix? My local weather is different which makes sense. This only comes up when the temp is near 32F and a couple of degrees either way makes all the difference.

I think I have to start really considering any forecast of say 36F to be a freeze warning for my house. Cause I've sure been getting burned the past couple nights.

I'm going to go move some plants. The rest...I guess they're on their own.

Now a half hour later and 2 stations report the temp has gone up and that was predicted. Kind of interesting.

The WUnderground has a graph showing forecast hour by hour so I'm going to use that more than the general forecast.

WUnderground is showing the temp rising tonight so like 44F at dawn here. Rain starting at 5am and ending 6pm Wed, becomes clear and temp falls to 32F dawn Thur.

I'll be covering Wed night after the rain stops. I'm leaving them covered til maybe Mon cause 32F is the forecast each night but no rain.

Thanks waterbug_guy!

Confusing isn't it??!!

Me too, out here near Ft. McDowell we seem to be a little cooler so I also look at "36" for PHX to translate into us being below freezing where we are. Really like the weatherunderground site now that I've used it, so much more reflective of what is happening here in the immediate area.

I just went out earlier this morning (12/31/14) and removed all my sheets and blankets on the various plants and shrubs...they were a little damp but not soaked from spattering of rain we had here sometime overnight here.

More substantial rain showers seem to be likely today so will wait until this evening when hopefully precip has concluded. Then re-cover everything *again* in preparation for the predicted freezing overnight temps. Basically, following your lead.

I guess spending NYE in this manner is not the end of the world if I can save most of my plantings....my friends however will NOT be envious of my plans to see in the new year (lugging around old sheets and bedspreads, curtains and beach towels; clothespinning and chip-clip clipping things together - lol.)

Best wishes to you for your endeavor at your place, hope all your plants withstand the freezing temps too!!! Thanks for your comments, appreciate them!

Kimmey

It's confusing. I think my biggest problem has been when I just see/hear the hi and lo like for Tues I think the lo is for Tues night, but really it was for Tues am. So I'm always a day late and dollar short.

I'm liking the graph view in WUnderground. I can see the wind speed, temp, rain, cloud/clear in one column and moving the cursor shows the time of day and a vertical line tells me the forecast. Kind of tells me when the front comes in and when it goes out.

But I guess the bottom line is I should get a sensor like what raimeiken suggested in the other thread to really understand what's going on in my yard. And then I can correlate that to the forecast.

Every year I get burned. Normally I just throw in the towel and deal with the damage. But I'm going to keep trying to learn. I'm thinking I'm going to have design cages for the plants so I can cover them and just keep them covered for weeks at a time. The Japanese do this and the structures look good too. They do it to protect from heavy snow but would work for frost/freeze too I think.
{{gwi:2122938}}

waterbug, I use the wire frames from around a/c units. These are perfect because they are 3-sided so the two open ends are placed on each side of the bed, then frost cloth over. When not in use, I store them in a back corner of the yard. Something more ascetically appealing that could remain in place all the time would be nice though.

I have a three station temp sensor, made by Taylor. I think you can get them at Ace. I placed one, wrapped in plastic under the frost cloth in that front garden I've posted about. The C9 lights have kept it consistently 15 degrees warmer than on the patio.

I use the NOAA site as a guide and it doesn't take long to figure the temp difference once you start tracking it. My temps are typically about 2 degrees cooler than what's projected at the station I monitor.

I've removed all covers today, am drying them all out and will recover tonight since 32 degrees is projected.

Since the covers are off I snapped a pic so you can see the cages. The one at the far end of the photo, you can see what I mean about it being 3-sided.

Don't remember which site I posted this 'all covered up' pic so if I'm repeating here, please excuse. but this is a good thread to show the cover up. These lights and frost cloth make a 15 degree difference. I have other covering in the back, like cotton sheets, and they are not nearly as effective as the frost cloth even without lights. One bed I covered in a *heavy* sheet I got at Savers and it does a good job, but just regular old, worn out sheets, not so good.

weather.gov will give you a local forecast, enter your zip code in the local forecast space and you can pinpoint your location on the map to the right.

The current conditions will be at the nearest airport but the forecast will be tailored to your location.

The official temperature at airports is taken inside a louvered box five feet above the ground. The low temperature out in the open is usually at least five degrees colder.

I've had a weather station (thermometer, rain gauge, barometer, etc) for years that connects to my WI FI at home and puts the data on WUNDERGROUND. My mom has one too and we like to compare rainfall and temps etc (she's in Mesa, I'm in Queen Creek). It's great to be able to check my weather at home no matter where I am as I can pull up my weather station from any internet connection. WUNDERGROUND keeps your stats for years, so I can go back and see what the high was at my house on July 12, 2004 or what was the total rainfall for 2013? Everyone should have one! ;-)
Here's mine:
http://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KAZQUEEN1
Oh and Happy New Year!
Kevin

The A/C covers are a good idea for the shorter plants. How do you get so many? I have one, didn't think to use it.

I did notice thin sheets didn't work very well. Sounds like the manufactured cloth works well? I saw it on some plants at Whitfill. Looked like it let in some light and maybe not affected by rain. The owner (I think) said it could be left on the plants for weeks.

Kevin, pretty cool being a WUnderground station. Didn't realize how easy it would be. Looked around their site on how to. Very interesting.

Neighbor has an a/c business, hubby has a side-gig recycling metal. Cardboard also works remarkably well. Yes, light gets through the frost cloth, probably ok to leave them on in rain but 1) I wanted the beds to get watered and 2) I wasn't sure if rain (wet cloth) followed by freezing temps would make the cloth lose it's warming insulating effect.

This post was edited by marymcp on Thu, Jan 1, 15 at 9:23

Thanks for the messages/suggestions everyone!

I did what I could and we'll see what worked here at my home.

The lights UNDER the cloth, now that was one I have not tried! Good idea! I've done Xmas lights before on some of the big shrubs but that never worked...with a covering over the lights however that would keep the heat in better.

Hope everyone had some degree of success with protecting from the freeze.

Again, thanks!!

KimmeyK, the lights have to be C9 - those old fashioned, big bulb christmas lights. Today's string lights do not produce any heat.

26F in north central Phoenix this am. That's going leave a mark.

28 here, NW Phx. 43 Ave/Peoria

So cool about your weather station, Kevin! You're famous, LOL. I check the wundermap every single night and now I'll be sure to check out your station. The data you and others provide there is amazing.

Is your weather station hard to set up/maintain? I'm curious to see/hear more!

Happy gardening all,
Grant (yup, it got to 30F here last night, ice on the birdbath but minimal damage to the garden).

Well, it got colder than predicted last night at my house, I should have covered more! Luckily all my potted stuff was in the heated greenhouse.
I've had my weather station so long, that that particular model is discontinued. I liked it because it was wireless and battery AND solar powered. There are several really good models out there now. For maintenance on mine, all I have to do is change the batteries once a year and while I'm up there I clean out the rain gauge. The hard part really is just the initial setup and getting it connected to your computer. There's software you have to install too, which connects to WUNDERGROUND and you can get that off the WUHU Yahoo groups page. A good place to start looking for a station is ambientweather dot com, once you find what you like you can google the brand and see if you can find it cheaper elsewhere...
Kevin

After hearing about this I checked out the WUnderground site and saw stations that connect directly via WIFI so you don't have to connect to a computer. A bunch of cool stations. Seems like $75-150 is about the starting point.

The Wunderground weather station nearest to me(less than a mile away) is reporting 44 degrees as of 8:11pm but the camping trailer in my backyard ALREADY has ice on the roof. The low this morning was 26. My bougainvillea and my only tomato plant sustained moderate damage even though they were covered, but they'll live.

I can't wait for spring!

Low Friday morning 22F in my coldest spot, 25F near the house. A degree warmer this morning. Put heatlamps and frostcloth out. So far looks like mango and white sapote flowers are black and leaf damage to guava and suriname cherry. Don't know about the mangos since the leaves take a few days to show the damage. Have two new mangos this year, Juliette and Harvest Moon. I would really hate to lose them so quickly....

Don't trim off any frost damage!!!
Let those dead or half dead leaves and branches protect the stuff under. It will help with the new growth not to get damaged again, we may not be done with these temps.
I know its hard but trust me it well be the best for the plants. They look bad but protecting the under growth is very important.

I decided to learn about the difference between frost and freeze. Interesting and also clarifies something I've been thinking lately...that I shouldn't wait for a forecast of 32F or lower to cover plants. Turns out there is more to it. Frost can happen at a much higher temp than I thought, or more specifically the measured temp. Taking a temp reading 1" above the ground and 4' above can be very different which makes sense but I hadn't considered before.

With that info my plants will stay covered tonight even though the low forecast is well above freezing. I'm changing my coverup temp to 40F or lower.

Thanks for the additional information on the weather station and hookup Kevin and all. I learn something new each time I log in. Good info about frost/freeze water bug. Happy gardening all!

Really liking this WUnderground graph. Right now it's showing 47F here and in the next 30 minutes or so the temp will jump 8 degrees to 55F as a warm front comes thru...just updated the forecast to jump only 53F. Pretty cool that the forecast is updated every few minutes or maybe seconds. Makes me want to go outside and feel the warm front come in.

How disappointing...I did go outside and didn't feel any change. WUnderground kept changing the forecast and the temp only went up 2 degrees. But I now know the data they show on the graph is actual measurements for time that has passed, not what their forecast was.