Ok, I'll bite! Today is the shortest day of the year. The days begin lengthening tomorrow. Spring will come!

I'm trying to remember when we've had this much winter in fall along the Colorado front range. I'm with you, I'm over it already!

Barb

Supposed to be sunny and 40 here today. Average is 25. Record low is -24,

We're halfway thru the winter-daylight cycle (the daylight will very slowly begin to lengthen now), but winter is hardly getting started. Minimum avg temps average around the last week of Jan, but that can vary a bit w/location.

Happy Winter Solstice - this stuff only works its magic this time of year.

-no mosquitos

-no stifling heat/humidity

-hoot owls call in the dead of the night, for me only this time of year

-oysters (only in month with an R)

-mulled cider & marzipan stollen

-we're in the black

just a few things that come to mind.

We went to the kindergarten winter program at their school, where the students sang merry holiday songs. Wonderful!

Yes, no bugs, had plenty of time to screen a couple partial bags of pine bark yesterday. And it won't be long before I'll be starting my rooting and seeds project for 2020.

36F & sunny today and tomorrow. (mild winds)!

Picea Glauca in the front yard last night. :^)

The biggest silver lining for me is easily the lengthening of the daylight hours from here on out. And as the sun starts to creep higher in the sky with each passing week, the pavement starts to melt clean with sunny days faster and faster after snowfalls. Might take some weeks still, but by the second half of January you really start noticing this.

after today.. the days start getting longer.. meaning its start warming towards spring .... though it will take us months in the great cold north to start feeling it ...

cold and snow aside ... its the dark drab gray days of winter.. that are the worst ... there are days.. when i put all the lights on.. in the house.. just to forestall suicide ... especially after 3 or 4 dark days in a row ...

ken

i see MN said just about the same thing ... go figure ... tree boys rock ... lol ...

The sun does start getting higher after today, adds to length of day by mere seconds a day. But it continues to get colder until well in to January. Why?

My wife's father had a saying, attributed to be an old farmer saying, 'as the days lengthen, the cold strengthens'. I never thought about it much until I looked it up and found out, surprisingly, it has some scientific basis.

Quote from paragraph #5 in link below. You can read on in the link to where it explains why it continues to get colder for many weeks after the winter solstice:

5. Why do the days still get colder after the solstice?

“As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/12/21/winter-solstice-2017-five-things-you-should-know-about-the-shortest-day-of-the-year/

well.. just a wild guess ... the sun is low.. because the earth is tilted up... the sun more intense below the equator ..... so it takes months for it to start tilting back up.. to favor us.. in the cold north ...

good as anything i can come up with.. in the middle of an extreme caffeine buzz... lol ...

who needs science.. lets just make stuff up ... lol ...

ken

Well, we need science and the last line of paragraph #5 does have the silver lining:

' If you don’t like the cold, here’s a silver lining: Whatever the rest of winter brings, daylight is once again on the upswing. That’s definitely something to celebrate! '

In my far north environment, higher sun manifests itself in a warmer house with sun coming in the windows for longer periods each day, way before warmer temps arrive. It also modifies the 'Arctic air' that flows down to us, resulting in slowly warming temperatures.

It's a bit 'chilling' though, knowing how sensitive our climate is to the angle of the sun and how a little change in the angle could make the difference in temperatures we can live with, or not. :-0

Didn't read the link due to my add blocker.

It's called the seasonal lag, and happens at the summer solstice also. The coldest (warmest) average temps occur roughly 4-6 weeks after the shortest (longest) day of the year. The short answer is that Planet Earth is a water planet, and water cools and warms MUCH more slowly than land, hence the temp lag.

Looks like plenty of silver linings to acknowledge!

Its day 3 in the 40s/50s with sunny skies. Broke a 100+ year record high for a daily record yesterday at 52 degrees. Lets just stick with this for the next few months and we're set!

whaas, for the last week here it's been rare to get even alittle above freezing. Pretty bad ice-storm couple days ago in the central Appalachians. But that's winter.....

It was exceedingly warm here, too. Almost 50. We're owed a few more stretches of nice weather after the heinous spring and fall we had with frigid temps.

I agree! 32 degrees with 6” of snow on Halloween was not cool.

People where ice fishing on the lake mid November. That is just insane.

Frost is coming out of the ground right now but still quite frozen

No leaves on the trees means better bird watching. Snow on the ground means they are eager to come to the feeders. My mom lives in Central America and was able to see a cardinal perched after a beautiful snow. Only in winter! Have seen an adult bald eagle sitting on a tree limb by the water this week, too, less than 100' away. Lots of silver linings!

Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) female.

Those owls up close in flight are amazing

Another good thing this time of year. :-)
Somewhere between Brainerd and Little falls MN.

Thankfully January was exceptional mild across the US. Lets keep it that way now through end of March!

whaas, heard that the later the true winter comes, the later it lasts into the spring....... :)

where did you hear that , an old wife ?

remember 2012 ?

ron

Winter started in October this year though!

All I know is, January is gone!

Somewhat of a highlight for me, even though February can be quite wintery, the Sun starts becoming a factor. We had 37dF with part sun the last couple days and we went from 6" packed ice and snow on the roads in town, to bare asphalt. Even my drive way on the northern exposed side of the house went from slush to bare cement. I did have to shovel the slush before that happened.

Last year on January 31st, it was -39df, one of many lows in the 20's & 30's below during January and February. Last year was ridiculous even for up here.

plantkiller, I heard it on the grapevine (watch the public video):

http://www.weatherbell.com/premium

So how concerned should I be with this warm, wet winter interferring with my new conifer's dormancy/growth? We have been mostly above freezing for the last couple weeks. The last real cold back on Jan. 22 into the teens. This past week we've been in the 60s and now back barely below freezing. Probably nothing I can do about it, but wait and see.

beng, He says at the end , You should enjoy the wheather , it's the only wheather we've got

haha , ron

They're forecasting coldest air of the season for the plains and east this week.

It hasn't been bad at all so far this season, so a couple more cold nights (-20?) won't be the worst for us by any means. After that the calendar map shows single digits to around zero for lows the rest of the month. Light at the end of the tunnel? :-)

This winter has felt interminable. Summer 2019 started in July here and we got extraordinarily cold in early October. We better get a "normal" spring or I'll go nuts

Finding the silver lining (for me). I don't live there (sorry).

One more cold blast coming in mid-week here. Then some upper 30's and low 40's forecasted for next weekend. Spring is coming! :D

And another silver lining for me....I hear builders aren't hitting much frost in the ground right now. The ground here was pretty saturated last fall so it was very slow to freeze before the snow arrived. Little frost means less chance of delays in digging and planting.

on the other hand , i heard discussion about warm winters not affecting fungii & insects

or having less killing temps.

ron

Silver lining ron, silver lining.

Let's keep it on topic. :-)

ron

Oh, I hate to say it, but I think Ron is right. After last year's harsh winter, Japanese beetle numbers were remarkably down where I live. I fear with this mild winter it will be the exact opposite this summer.

Oops....sorry, Bill. :-)

The bright side is that none of this really made any difference to me but it's a slow time of year so I posted to ron just to liven things up a bit. :o)

I feel like this winter has actually gone by quite fast. I have a new, mostly empty yard to play in this upcoming summer. Having to wait until May to start planting and making it look nice has been stressing me out though. I keep changing my mind on which trees to plant, how to tame the backyard. I want to start immediately.

Yep, it's the 'winter blues' time of year that's for sure.

Plenty of time for planning. :-)

I'll be anxious to see how my new outside plantings fared, with the heavy snow cover.

Will open the cold frame as soon as weather permits and put the survivors, if any, under the lights. I've never done that before but it should be good, I suppose, to give those potted conifer seedlings a 'head start'.

Bill - we know

mngrower , lay out your yard on tracing paper

it kills time till spring , gives you ideas for layout & plants , and gives sense of scale so you don't over plant & crowd like I always do ...ha

ron

Looks like you guys are going a little stir crazy!

we know, we know!

:-)

Been sunny and above freezing (high 30's to low 40's F) the last couple of days. Water was 3" deep in front of the service door yesterday. Soaked away into the ground over night. Good sign. Dripping off the roof steady, you can hear it going down the rain spout, snow banks receding. Yippee!

Just good to be outside in the sun, even shopping is more pleasant without the extreme cold, getting into cold cars etc.