Wow, Dawn, what a great article! Recalling what last April was like, this paragraph has me on full alert...

“These impacts can last four to six, and maybe eight, weeks,” said Cohen, who expects the worst winter conditions to peak in February. After last year’s polar vortex disruption in February, abnormally cold and stormy weather dominated the eastern U.S. in March and well into April.

It seems this happened much later last year, but like you, I'll definitely stay tuned because it will determine my seed starting dates.

I’m going to drag my huge container Arp up close to the house where it’s sheltered from the wind, and throw a sheet over it. That’s about the best I can do there. I’ll make sure there’s a layer of leaves over everything else, but the wind will probably make that a losing battle.

Amy, You and I think exactly alike. Bah humbug was what I was thinking as I finished reading it.

Megan, It was later last year. For those of you who don't remember, we had a mostly warm January and February and then the cold came slamming back--more so up north than down south. I think we didn't have trouble down here until that wonderful holiday known as April Fool's Easter Sunday, when we went down to freezing, followed by several more nights of freezing or near-freezing temperatures. Then we warmed up a little, then we had some more freezing nights....much later than usual.

Rebecca, I agree with you about the wind. No matter what we try to do in terms of covering up plants, the wind is going to try its best to blow the coverings off the plants. Sometimes in Spring when I am covering up entire rows of tomato plants, I use both 6" U-shaped landscape staples to hold the fabric down tightly to the ground and zip ties to attach the frost blankets to the low tunnel hoops. The zip ties are an enormous PITA and I hate doing it, but it does hold the fabric in place. I hate having to do all that, but it works. I'm not going to do it for just one cold night in the 20s though, especially since Arp ought to be able to tolerate those temperatures. The PITA aspect of going to that much trouble to cover up plants is why I don't even want to start covering things this time of the year. I'm hoping the forecast doesn't worsen any. I still dread what that cold wind will do to plants. Of course, with all the recent rainfall, at least the plant foliage has a lot of moisture in it so hopefully the wind won't dry out the foliage too much.

Have y'all looked at your forecast temperatures for the weekend tonight? Ours are looking better for both Sat and Sun night---each raised roughly 6 degrees by the NWS. So, my 18 degree Sat night low now is expected to be a 24 degree night. I don't know if there is much difference in these two temperatures as far as how they affect the plants, but 24 sure sounds better than 18. Oh, and I know that I could look at the forecast tomorrow morning, and that Sat night low could be back at 18 again. On the other hand, it seems like our wind gusts will be higher---up to 40 mph. I hope the forecasters are wrong about that, as 30 was going to be bad enough.

From watching some of the weather predictor things that some of the local TV mets show on the TV, it looks like the second storm, which follows the first one by a couple of days, will not dip down as far south as the first storm. Let's hope they are right about that, though the second storm probably still will hit parts of northern OK.

The sun came out late this afternoon so we had full, glorious sunshine from around 3 p.m. until sunset. It was heavenly! Our high temperature then climbed all the way up to 63 degrees. Granted we only were sunny and warm for 2 or 3 hours, but at least we had that. Bees were out late in the afternoon foraging corn dust at the dove's cracked corn. I hope they can do the same tomorrow because I'm pretty sure they won't be out for the next few days after that.

Well, our forecast fell apart. Instead of sunny and warm today and tomorrow with highs near 70, we are going to be a lot less sunny and much colder.....highs in the 50s. This is a forecast change that I do not appreciate. I knew the highs near 70 sounded too good to be true and apparently it was.

A cold front is passing through our area right now and winds are changing from the SE to the N, so the odds are higher that I'll stay indoors and clean house instead of working in the yard as I originally had planned when the forecast looked a lot better. At least the wind isn't supposed to kick in until tomorrow, so I ought to be able to pile leaves on top of some of the tender plants in the garden this afternoon and maybe that will give them a little extra protection from the cold.

I also do intend to go out to the garden and pull up the little catnip plants that have sprouted and bring them indoors for the cats because those catnip plants will freeze at 24 degrees. The cats might as well have the catnip to enjoy today and tomorrow instead of just letting it freeze.

So, that's our latest weather news and I don't like it. That is not unusual---often there isn't much about our weather to like in January.

The weather guessers had everyone freaked out earlier in the week with forecasts of a single digit high and below zero wind chills for the Chiefs playoff game Sunday evening. Now they are saying a low of 8 Sunday morning with a game time temp in the upper 20s. Weather shouldn't be a factor for the game but field conditions might be since the field got pretty torn up during last weekend's snow game. They re-sodded the middle of the field on Monday and Tuesday.

I don't have anything in need of protection here as I don't even try to overwinter much of anything that is not Zone 5 winter hardy outdoors. I used to have a pretty big Arp Rosemary in a half barrel that I'd bring into the garage during winter but it finally got root bound and I planted it out against the south side of my house in 2017. It didn't make it through last winter's -12 low. I need to start over with a new plant this spring.

Jack, This morning, I awakened to our original Friday forecast with highs in the upper 60s and sunshine. I wonder if the professional guessers have been hitting the moonshine because our forecast has been all over the place. It is maddening.

That game time temperature sure does sound better today, doesn't it? I'll hoping your Chiefs beat those Patriots.

There's a newer cold hardy type rosemary variety at High Country Gardens that I want to try here, simply because I'd like to have more than just Arp. I think I had Madaline Hill rosemary until the night we went down to 1 degree either last year or the year before, but it is hard to find locally, so I might have to order it from HCG this spring. The one I've seen at HCG's website that currently is out of stock is called Alcalde. Then, Monrovia has one that is supposed to be cold hardy down to zone 6, so I'll be watching for that in nurseries that carry Monrovia plants. It is called Blue Spires.

Our weather is NUTS. Okay, y'all, where is my cold front? It is supposed to hit us sometime after midnight. So.....when the sun set shortly before 6 p.m., we were around 58 or 59 degrees. Now the temperature keeps climbing and we are up to 64 degrees here at our house at 10 p.m.. This is so strange. Now, in the summer, we sometimes get hit here by compressional heating in the Red River Valley and our temperatures can skyrocket higher than forecast very rapidly when that occurs. I'm just not sure we would have compressional heating in winter? Maybe we do and maybe that is why our temperature is climbing as the cold front approaches. It is getting closer now. Tim says the temps are dropping just two counties NW of us. It is plain old weird and I don't know why our temperatures are climbing after dark as a big cold front approaches, but we get what we get.

Stay warm and safe everyone. Send any leftover snow my way because our chances of actually getting any down here are very, very slim....I won't say slim to none, but almost.

Is is SPRING yet?

Dawn

That is strange, Dawn.

The wind just blew in here and it is bad. The temp is 47, though, but it’s supposed to start dropping.

I cant find Finbar. That darn cat.

I have not been watching the weather, but, because of what I have read here, I picked a couple of bags of turnips this evening to take to a student nurse at the nursing home where mom is staying. I had been telling him for a while that I would bring him some. I was expecting the weather to get colder than the forecast is now. I think the turnips will still be fine, although the older leaves wont be.

My Austrian winter peas look nice. I picked a few vine tips and ate them in the garden. I was surprised at how sweet they were and started to check to see if people really ate them, it looks like they do. Have any of you ever tried this? I had never heard of it. I don't think you could find a more " care free" crop. My largest problem is keeping it away from the henbit. I hate the smell of henbit.

I will shut up now, I am starting to ramble. Madge and I have really been running hard trying to care for sick people.

Well, it's pouring here now and thundering (dogs woke me racing through house trying to escape the thunder). The current low forecasted went from 4 to 16 now...I'm much more sedate about it.

Jennifer, I hope that Finbar came in. Our cats must have felt the weather coming because when we got home late Friday afternoon, they all came right indoors, including the one who usually stays out after dark and makes me worry.

Larry, I know people eat the tender vines/shoots of regular English peas and sugar snap type peas, so I don't know why you couldn't do the same with Austrian winter peas.

I hope you and Madge can catch up on your rest and stay healthy while you're busy taking care of sick folks.

dbarron, Pouring down snow? Like thundersnow? That would be so cool. I love thundersnow. We have two dogs who bark and howl at the thunder, and one who goes into the bathroom and hides from it. Currently our 2 barkers/howlers are howling at the sound of emergency sirens because there is a serious motor vehicle accident near our home (not really close, but close enough that the dogs can hear the sirens from the fire trucks, police cars and ambulance). Tim is gone to that, so they are watching out the window for him to come home and, in the meantime, doing their howling thing. It is impossible to sleep through anything in this house. Once the sirens stop, the two dogs will stop. Or, I can tell them to stop howling and they will stop. For a minute. Then when they think I've gone back to bed or whatever, they start up again. They try to be good but they love to howl.

We used to have a dog named Biscuit (RIP, sweet doggie) who howled along with opera music and truly loved to sing along with it, but other than that, he never howled at anything. These two blue heeler mixes we have now believe they were put on earth to howl at everything---sirens, the howling of coyotes, the howling wind, etc.

When the fire pagers woke us up around 3:40 a.m., I looked out the window and heavy snow with big, wet fluffy flakes was coming down like crazy. The temperature, which was around 58 degrees right around midnight, now is sitting right there at 32 degrees at our house, but shows 33 degrees at the nearest Mesonet station. The snow covers everything....the ground, the evergreen shrubs and trees, the lawn furniture, and even my greenhouse. I don't know how long it has been falling. What the forecasters had said was that if any snow fell this far south, it likely would be mixed with rain and would not accumulate. Well, there's no rain mixed with this and it is accumulating. Our ground is pretty warm (the mesonet map shows our soil temperature is 47 degrees at a depth of 2 inches) so I would think the snow will melt away pretty quickly---perhaps even before sunrise, so people here might miss seeing it unless they're awake in the middle of the night for some reason.

So, I got the longed-for snow. I don't think we'll be outside tomorrow building snowmen or anything but I am enjoying watching those big flakes coming down.

It definitely is not Spring yet here, notwithstanding yesterday's official high temperature of 69 degrees.

I checked our weather just now, and the NWS extended the Wind Advisory, which had excluded southern OK, to us at 3:13 a.m. I had been amused by the fact that the Texas county that surrounds our part of our county on three sides had a Wind Advisory and yet we did not. Was NWS-Norman thinking the wind would just stop at the Red River? Even before I went to sleep last night, we had wind gusts as high as 40 mph, while the folks near us with a Wind Advisory had wind gusts in the mid 30s. So I suppose after several hours of those higher wind gusts, NWS-Norman finally decided to add us to the Wind Advisory. Better late than never, but who is awake at 3:13 a.m. to notice such things? NWS-Norman always does this, by the way, adding us later on to Wind Advisories long after NWS-Fort Worth put the Texas counties surrounding us under one. This is a persistent thing here, and I don't know why it is that way.

When the Fort Worth Stock Show folks last evening cancelled the scheduled Saturday morning Stock Show parade for only the second time in its history (and people on FB instantly were outraged by the annual parade being cancelled), I knew that they were expecting snow or sleet down there because someone mentioned they didn't want the horses to slip and fall on the dangerous, slick roadways. I had explained to Lillie earlier in the day that Friday was the opening day of the stock show and we'd try to take her and her younger sister down there to the stock show one day during its run if we didn't get the traditional Stock Show weather of ice and snow. While they had a gorgeous sunny and warm day for the opening day, it appears they have snow/sleet/ice for the first night of the show. I doubt it will last for the three week duration of the show.

Dawn

No Dawn, just rain :)

I'm glad you got your snow. Dawn! We have a tiny bit more than a skiff. And it's not going to melt. It is cold and windy. Windchill makes it 11. Brr. Blach. lol

Yes, it's 25 here and it's white now (about 1/4 to 1/2 inch)...suspect it'll melt by tomorrow. Brrrr! and staying in...maybe cooking a bit and writing.

How is it that our usually snow-deprived area got the most snow? I am sure it all is an accident.

So, we ended up with about an inch of snow at our place. It was so gorgeous, but we barely made it below freezing (29 degrees at our coldest) and have been above freezing much of today, so most of the snow is gone now. It was pretty while it lasted. Now that the snow is mostly gone, we are back to this winter's standard icky, yucky, ugly, sloppy, gloppy brown mud.

The wind and wind chills have been awful. It does seem like the wind speeds have dropped slowly all day. Our worst gusts were only in the 39-41 mph range, but we had them over probably at least 12 hours, with wind chills in the teens. Just sitting and looking out the windows now, I'd say the gusts have dropped into the upper 20s to upper 30s over the last hour or two, so are slightly lower. For as far south as we are, this is a pretty cold day.

The garden has been buried under snow, so it is hard to guess if there is any damage to plants from the snow. Perhaps the warm season volunteers are not happy, but that hardly matters, because after tonight's lows in the mid-20s, they'll be gone.

So, now that we made it through the really cold night, how accurate was your forecast? Here's the OKMesonet's map that shows officially recorded lows for each station since midnight:

Today's Low Temperatures

For us, the original forecast low of 18 degrees for last night from the Sun-Mon-Tues forecasts was 100% accurate. The revised forecast lows of 23, 24 or 25 from later in the week, depending on which day of the week you looked at them, were not. So, even though we got excited as the forecast lows were increased later in the week, for us down here in my county, it turned out the early forecasts were the ones that verified. We were 18 degrees within the last hour or so, but have risen all the way to 19 degrees now.

The snow is mostly gone, except on the north side of buildings which sunshine just doesn't reach this time of the year. Today's much warmer temperatures should take care of that snow today.

For the upcoming week, our temperatures return more to normal levels, although normal temperatures in January are not exactly anything to get excited about.

Keep an eye on next weekend's forecast. Some models hint at another cold blast. I think it was more in the Monday time frame, but it may have included Sunday. It also is possible the cold blast stays well north of OK....it depends on how the models resolve the disagreement between them. Forecast models a week out are not very accurate much of the time.

We've been feeding birds all winter as we usually do. They return the favor by hanging around and eating insects during the warm season. Yesterday we had all our usual birds plus dozens and dozens more. It amazes me how much thistle seed the tiny finches can eat when they are present in large numbers. Of course, they are eating much more than normal in this cold weather in order to stay warm. We have five finch feeders and I am having trouble keeping enough seeds in them. We mostly have goldfinches but a few house finches as well. I am having to refill the finch feeders at least once daily, and I tried to feed the waiting birds who couldn't get to those five feeders (due to heavy bird traffic) by spreading thistle seeds along the porch rails of the front porch and back porch. That has worked pretty well, though it is messy. The good thing is that the chickens like thistle seeds, so they go up on the front porch and check the porch for any seeds knocked off the porch rails by the finches. We have gone through almost an entire 15-lb bag of thistle seed just in the last week, and need to get another bag today or tomorrow.

Yesterday Tim joked that we'd had our snow and our cold weather this winter and that now winter is over for us. I wish he was right about that, but I don't think the cold weather is even close to being over.

Our low was 17. 17's good. Cilantro's just chugging along. It might just overwinter. I planted a little plot of it about 2x2. Now that I know it's so cold hardy, I'll plant it out next to the parsley from now on.