I love the Mesonet and appreciate your bringing it to our attenton, Dawn.

My greenhouse low was 26. There was nothing in it so I left it open last night. It might have been a hair warmer than outside because of the fabric I put in there for shade, but I doubt it.

I'm glad my onions were mulched. I didn't put the blanket on until about 10pm last night.

I was wondering about mine. I meant to cover them and forgot.

Were they mulched? For us it was mostly the wind chill, but it lasted a long time and that's usually sufficient to lower soil temps.

You and me both Amy. I have lots of ideas thanks to all our enablers. And they all get put on my lists and someday one by one they get done. Love the inspiration we get from each other.

Nancy, I love the Mesonet too. I learn so much about my county's weather by watching all the Mesonet data. I use the OK Fire portion of it to check weather during fires, so we can be aware of upcoming wind shifts and such. It is a wonderful tool. Because I watch my own weather, I also compare and see how much our weather at our house varies from the weather at our Mesonet station and at our NWS cooperative weather observer site too. It helps me understand the microclimates in our area because the NWS cooperative weather observer site is just about 3 miles from us.

I didn't cover my onions and really hadn't even mulched them yet. I wanted the soil to warm up as much as it could, so I left it bare. I may mulch them this week if I get around to it. The onions didn't even seem to notice the weather got colder. They're usually very cold-tolerant down into the 20s or, with proper prior conditioning, maybe in to the teens. The daffodils weren't bothered. The fruit trees blooms do not appear to have been bothered. So far, so good.

Dawn

And another cool thing about the Mesonet--and gardening in OK. I know exactly what shape my county is now and exactly where it is, AND Adair County AND Love County, Tulsa County, Muskogee County. lol Which county are the rest of you in?

Yes, Dawn, I SAW the fire weather map Amazing. And yes--I noted that there aren't any mesonet stations near us--closest ones are 21 and 25 miles away, and our weather IS usually about 4 degrees warmer than Wagoner's. . . we need to get a good thermometer. lol

I'm glad I covered the onions. All I did was gently set old blankets over the beds and placed heavy objects on the ends so they don't blow away.

Bill mentioned an abandoned planter that was iced over this morning nad how it surprised him. I pestered him until he told me where this iced-over area was located so I could spot where this cooler micro climate is. I don't think my onions got that cold under the mulch and blanket. I covered my onions again this evening as the nearest mesonet projects a low of 32 and I didn't trust it. Sure enough. Right now It's 29 degrees without wind. It'll be worse when the wind picks up overnight. I'm trying to focus on quality this year in lieu of adding more onions to displace lost ones. I'm up to six bundles this time. I think I lost about 1/4th of my onions last year to bolting. I simply don't have space to add more. And I want a lot of onions lolz.

Nancy, One thing I've learned from tracking our weather is just how crazily variable it is. Rain gauges on our property often record different amounts of rain, even when they are just a few dozen feet from one another. Thermometers, all but one (it is on our little weather station) of the thermometers are posted at 5' above ground in the shade, and yet they sometimes can differ from 1 to 5 degrees at the same time. It will drive you bonkers if you let it. I just look at the numbers and roll them into averages in my head.

Our fires have been bad on days with virtually no wind, which is not necessarily typical. That's so wrong, and so rare given that we have had plentiful moisture for a couple of years now. It is what it is. We just deal with what happens. Sometimes on a bad fire day, some of the conditions come together as expected and we have horrible fires everywhere, but sometimes the humidity doesn't drop as low as expected until wind speed already has really fallen or something. Still, any time fire weather is anything higher than Moderate, we stay extra-alert, and when it is high, critical, extreme or extremely critical, we watch the skies for the slightest sign of smoke. It is sort of the same way with tornadoes. Not all bad tornado days are the same, but even if the tornado risk is only slightly elevated---it only takes one tornado to ruin your day if it hits your community. Fire days are sort of the same. We all need to heed the warnings, though, because we never know when it is our day to be on the hot seat.

Bon, Our onions made it through just fine. I think our forecast for last night was 35 and we dropped to 28 at our house around 7 a.m. Once again, no visible damage on anything, though I haven't walked the rows of the garden yet. I just looked at everything from outside the fence. I'm pleased we made it through these 2 nights with no real damage. When the next cold nights hit this week, I hope we'll be as fortunate.

I'm keeping my eye on the Convective Outlook for Tuesday, although it currently looks like the more dangerous storms won't be close to us. Things could shift a bit, though, since we're still a couple of days out. I just don't want to have to worry about hail as early as late February or early March.

I'm watching the episode of "Weather Gone Viral" on TSC that includes the Moore tornado that hit Briarwood and Plaza Towers elementary schools, as well as many other areas, and it is horrifying to see it all over again. It is odd how long ago 2013 feels already. I'll never forget how horrible that day was, and how awful it was to watch it live on TV in real time on The Weather Channel and to know it was happening to people right here in our state. These shows are such a good reminder to us that weather events can change lives in seconds.

While we always worry so much about the weather's effect on our gardens, it still is of no importance in the overall scheme of thing compared to what it does to people's lives.

And, in somewhat weather related news (who could forget his role in the movie "Twister"?), Fort Worth native and stupendous actor Bill Paxton unexpectedly passed away following complications from heart surgery. I just thought this was such sad news. He was only 61. I enjoyed the roles he played in so many productions, but my favorite always was "Twister", perhaps because we live in the land of the twister.

Dawn

Paxton was an icon imo. Will be sorely missed. He'll leave a void on the screen for me. I'll hafta get warmed up to some other new kids on the screen.

Moore was so sad. I take our early warning systems for granted. They are trigger happy with the alarms in my city and it once annoyed me, but I think it was Moore that really set me straight on it all. I have grown so accustomed to accurate meteorology I thot we had become invincible. All those wonderful interactive doppler radar gadgets are user-friendly and make it easy to forget someone most likely died trying to pit equipment in the path of a tornado to begin registering its information on the doppler. My view of being the center of the world gets shattered when I hear of deaths in other states where tornadoes are not as frequent and they haven't decent early warning systems, if at all. I get mad because their deaths could probably have been prevented, but the greater risks call the money and funding for early warning systems. So....

Many of my onions are rotting because I probably overwatered with the mulch atop. I uncovered them totally today in hopes the soil will air out. I might grab another bunch of onions and start replacing. Only one row is rooted in decently. That was the first row completed only ONE day prior to the others who were hit by severe cold immediately following plantings. sigh

Hmm, Dawn. Maybe our thermometer isn't wacko or inaccurate. Whatever the case may be, I can see I want a couple more--for the veggie garden area and the back yard.

By the way, Dawn. not sure what search I did here this evening, but found your Tom Clothier link. AMAZING! Thank you SO much for that. http://tomclothier.hort.net/ What a guy he must have been, eh? I've been reading reading his stuff for the better part of this evening.

Kim, thank you for your onion story--will NOT be watering the onions for now. . .I check the soil and it's decently moist. Sorry for your rotting ones. . . but please feel better knowing you probably saved mine.

I used pine straw on my onions, Bon. Hopefully light enough to keep the frost off and protect them from the drying winds.

Nancy, welcome from Seminole County-I hop in and out, but don't post regularly until school is out. I think I posted on your morel inquiry in the frugal gardening FB page earlier.

Dawn, as always, I take so much away from your posts. I tend to rely on my outdoor thermometer, but had no idea how LONG we were below freezing. Glad I covered up my roses and daylilies, which have new, tender growth. We'll see if the plum tree produces this year.

Ciruela? Thank you. Seminole--not terribly far away from us, huh. What's the country like where you are? Wouldn't it be a hoot to have morels show up in our yards. . .

I did NOT cover my day lilies, and they're looking good, thankfully. Only things I covered with leaves were the new rosemary I put in and the clematis that had sprung up. I have a loose layer of dry straw over the onions, and they look fine for now.

LIfe's rich with this forum, and now OK frugal gardening and OK gardening network. . . and planting and planning and reading reading reading. I bet I check my tray of newly planted peppers half a dozen times a day.

In truth, I told GDW, in terms of the seedlings, I didn't care if any of the flower seedlings die, if only the hollyhock zebrinas and ornamental peppers do well. (Not TOTALLY true, of course, but those are the ones I'm watching--those and the other newly planted peppers, 3 of which are up already, and this was only 4 days ago. I have them in a tray where the temp is VERY warm. 16 to go. I'm cautiously optimistic. haha. Also, have to confess--and much to my surprise--I'm delighted by all the little 12 coleus pots. . . will be so much fun to see what designs and colors develop. I can't believe I'm so thrilled about coleus! but am.

Nancy, I'm in an odd corner of our county. We're just off of Highway 9 in a neighborhood planned after the Army Corps of Engineers built a dam on a very small lake that serves as a feeder to Wewoka Lake. Our little 3 acre property is at the western edge and slopes in that direction. Two acres behind our yard is a wooded hillside with a creek that runs parallel with our property line. A block east is our tiny lake and Wewoka Lake is to our south. Our yard is very sandy and on a ridge of rock. The soil is fairly poor, probably as a result of runoff and farming that was helped with chemicals and not really planned for erosion. I am finally trying to make a more educated effort to improve it. It's like I've been trying to make cosmetic changes to a house that needs structural repair. Thank goodness for this forum!

Carol/aka Ciruela dela Arena (Sandplum)

Carol, You can get a sense of how long your county stayed below freezing via the Mesonet maps. I like to check the "hours below freezing in the last 24 hours" map each morning to give me an idea of how long our mesonet station was below freezing. That doesn't mean it was exactly the same at our house, but it also is likely to be in the same ballpark. This data can go away quickly once you rise above freezing, so it only really works if you check it early in the day.

Consecutive Hours Below Freezing

To get older data, you can look at the map that shows how many hours your county has been at or below freezing in the last 48 hours.

Hours Below Freezing in the Last 48 Hours

You also can use the meteogram for your county to track all sorts of weather changes. If you haven't used the OK Mesonet meteogram before, let me know and I'll tell you more about it.

Dawn

Carol, it sounds like you have your work cut out for you. Good luck! Sounds like you have access to a lot of leaves? We're also on the rocks. . . but the soil around them is not particularly sandy. (Still haven't made it to Coweta to pick up our soil testing kits! Grrr.) However, there has been a LOT of top soil trucked into this property over the years from a neighbor's 10-acre field (a silty dirt) on the front yard. Clay fill to the south. Leaning toward silt/sand to the north, and silty in the east back yard. The oaks on the back half of the place have left some nice loam but it's hard to get it up because of the rocks everywhere.

Temperatures here after night before last sound pretty friendly for the next couple of weeks. And of course, I hope they continue to be, as I've got to get something rigged up for the fast-growing plants on the grow cart. I ordered a couple fabric row covers just to have for the raised beds (the walls of which are higher than the soil by about 6 inches.) The plants have been spending more and more time outdoors. I'm lovin' the process and observations.

My last round of peppers ALL germinated--all the ornamentals, the jalapenos and the green bells. All 24 of them. And I already had 16 of yellow/red/green/cherry and jalapenos. Hmm. Maybe I'll get some peppers this year. And I have at least that many tomatoes, DAWN! You ARE an enabler! Which means that this year, I will not have flower beds. I will have tomato-with-some-flower beds.

So temps or not, these tomatoes are getting kicked out of the house in another 2 weeks, I'm sure, with the row covers at the ready. Hazel, it was you, right, who is having them outgrow her space. . . ? Me too.