Hardiness confusion?

8 years ago

Hi all, so I’ve “known” for a couple years that my part of Massachusetts is rated a zone 6a (according to numerous sites including the USDA) however I was looking on a different site for something else weather related and saw the average temps for my town and found our low temps average around 14 degrees in January (of course it occasionally gets colder for a week or two, I do understand how averages work :) )

is it possible my town is in some sort of “warm” pocket? Since zone 6a would mean temps around -10 or -5? Or does USDA use the lowest recorded temps to make their decisions rather than averages?

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Comments (4)

Embothrium
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Maybe the weather station used by usclimatedata is in a warmer spot. Otherwise you can see the USDA method described on their hardiness zone web pages. One thing I notice is you posted data for a couple months whereas they use entire years for particular periods of years. Also your posting doesn't show how many years and which years the data was compiled from.
Kali C
Original Author
8 years ago
Embothrium, the data years were 1981-2010 according to the citation in the bottom :)

hm that could make sense if it was measured in a different area
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nsiltane (zone 5a)
8 years ago
USDA zones indicate the average annual minimum, or the lowest temperature of the whole winter. The site you have there lists the average daily lows, which are obviously higher as you don't have the coldest day of the winter every day.
Kali C thanked nsiltane (zone 5a)
Kali C
Original Author
8 years ago
Thank you that makes more sense!