Yesterday morning near the hospital in Carson City, NV it was about 45℉ and we had snowfall so intense it was tantamount to a white-out for several minutes. An old man in a old black Cadillac somehow got himself parked across the entrance to the parking-lot and had to have assistance. It snowed almost all day with no accumulation. None.

We call it a weather coaster, digit! You seem to have gotten our winter moisture, so it seems only fair for you to get our temp swings, too!

Kidding aside, it's been cool, rainy and drizzly for a few days here, such welcome relief. If it gets cold enough we may see snow today.

Albert, that is Rocky Mountain weather. White outs are scary to drive in but we'll take the moisture however it comes!

Actually, I was commenting on Denver's current weekend weather, Barb.

We have the dull sameness of PNW weather in the spring, waaay too often! When Pacific storms have enuf power to them, they just keep coming. Maybe 90% of the precipitation has been wrung out of them by the Cascades but the clouds and cool temperatures persist in moving on inland.

If the clouds blow away, too often it's in the evening and temperatures drop. Those cold overnights are characteristic of our local growing season. There is some close similarities to Colorado. Even over a short night of summer darkness, valley heat migrates straight up and cold mountain air drops down to replace it.

Steve

Albert!

I thought you were in San Diego ... or, someplace in SoCal ...

What are you doing in Carson City? Is that your new home or are you visiting?

Shoot. I moved from the far northern California coast to here thinking I'd finally get a decent growing season. Instead, I learned that here I do get 4 seasons instead of 1 all year long but my gardens here can only grow during 3 out of the 12 months.

Steve

I'm with treebarb. Whatever moisture we can get is a treasure for us. March surely came in like a lamb and roared out like a lion.

Luckily I dug up dandelions before the rain came. They'll be more soon.

Our annual precipitation at less than 20" probably doesn't sound like much in most parts of the world.

I'm not trying to taunt you or anything but we had over 1/2 of that already in 2017.

That much precip means that A.) I couldn't get into the gardens because the ground is so wet, & B.) all those clouds meant cool temperatures throughout! The warmest day so far has been 60°f on the nose and daily average through March was only 41°!

I saw my first lawn violet yesterday and, altho the standards haven't bloomed yet, the miniature daffodil flowers are now opening! Yeah, and no is dandelion flowering ...

Steve

You get about 3 - 4 inches more annual precip. than we do. Taunt away, I'm glad of your good fortune! But I do understand how that timing is bad.

We count on the March and April storms to drop at least of few inches of liquid precip., either in the form a few feet of snow or a few inches of rain to moisten the soil enough to dig. I've heard 12 inches of our average snow = 1 inch of rain or liquid precip. In May and June we're either dry and watering or trying to dodge hail storms till the July monsoons come...or sometimes don't come.

We have similar challenges, a short season and not much moisture, and the moisture not coming when we'd like it to.

Most of my bulbs except the tulips are blooming now, about 3 weeks early and so pretty. Noaa.gov says 26 here tonight so I better enjoy the show today.

It's snowed here on Mother's Day the last 2 years, when a lot of us have thrown caution to the wind and planted out our tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. I may just wait until Memorial Day weekend this year.

Barb

Barb, it's just a darn shame that Colorado has such wildly varying weather! I'm not sure how you can keep any plants alive, year to year.

Yeah, I imagine that your tulip blooms will be gone by afternoon.

There are quite a few people here who use Memorial Day as their gardening to-do day. I have very, very few pepper variety choices that will ever ripen past green. Habanero, even to green, fuhgeddaboudit! The green ones won't even fill out properly.

It isn't horrible. After all, I can have sweet corn and that was very difficult years ago in NorCal with the coastal coolness. And all my gardening is lots less risky than when I lived here at a 500 foot higher location.

Steve

I was out for a walk after the morning rainstorm passed. Stopped at the big veggie garden first to see how the Tractor Guy did with his tiller. Then, on to my 30 minute walk/exercise.

The location was about 1/2 mile from the garden. It should be a little warmer there but about the same. There were Mahonia (Oregon grape) along the walk. Not a single one had more than green flower buds.

I know that I'm late getting into the gardens this year - more than a week - but I use those flowers to to guide my planting of peas. There's no reason for me to think I'm behind in sowing seed.

Near the Oregon grape, there was one (1) buttercup. The tiny whitestem filaree weeds are blooming but just started. I never make it into a garden before that weed blooms! A neighbor not too far from the garden has forsythia in bloom but the flowers aren't fully open. The wild parsnip blooms aren't fully opened, either.

digitSteve