Something I noticed that confuses -- the caption on the FB pic said the above blizzard happened 60 yrs ago (1966), but 1996 is shown in the pic? So not sure what's correct, but one would think those old RR telephone lines would have been mostly dilapidated (lines missing, insulators broken/gone) by 1996. Those in the pic look in fairly decent shape....

PS: Searching, 1966 is correct. The date on the photo may be when it was copied or just a simple typo.

I don't put much faith in what's posted on FB.

Winter has finally died here, still some snow around for us to remember. Still not the worst winter I remember, worst was one in the 1990's with continuous ICE storm events, not even snow. It was a nightmare!!! Temps here now predicted to be reaching 70-75 soon.

P.S., Noon solar angle now, 44 degrees, but who is counting?!

haha! Great 41.

Some snow piles in the shade where it drifted or was piled.

Been melting day & night for the last several days.

Rain tonight and all day tomorrow, that should help finish it off.

I went around the yard today and removed some short tubes at the base of trees that I didn't want smaller rodents feasting on.

There's enough green grass showing to satisfy the rabbits.

Moved some of the wood mulch I piled on last Fall away from trunks a few inches.

Just good to get outside and do something in the fresh air!

Bil, what is the uniform shrub border in your top pic there?

Common lilac.

Some white, some purple, some lavender.

May 2016.

Planted Araucaria araucana (Monkey Puzzle) looks fine this year. Year 6 in ground.

Hardier palms, cycads and Citrus go outside from garage tomorrow, will post pics.

This was the Monkey Puzzle in November of 2025, snow actually protected it from the worst of the cold. 0 browning.

Good for you 41!

Not a big warmup here but we are to stay above freezing during the daytime for the rest of the month, even some 50's but there'll be some freezing nights (20's) off and on for nighttime temps.

It didn't rain much today and a threat of freezing rain tonight but everyday you can look out and see less snow. It's going pretty fast.

Nothing growing yet but I was able to get outside and remove the cardboard windbreaks on the Hemlock, so the sun gets in there and thaws the ground.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It's shady there anyways and slow to thaw out (I had to chop some ice). :-)

/////////

Changing clocks this weekend, think NJ was in the news today about resisting the annual change but forget if we are arguing for Standard or DST. Somehow, I resent the change more now, wish we kept Standard Time year long. Hate mornings started in darkness. But every starte cannot do this individually, how many different time zones do we need in the East anyway?! P.S., I could argue for Maine being moved into the "Atantic" time zone, they are so far east!

Hawaii and most of Arizona don't observe DST.

So this pic of the Monkey Puzzle is from today, almost 0 burning. I hear they pick up in growth after a few years in the ground. Meantime, my rhododendrons in the front look miserable, will remove them, and an island of Hemlocks (too bad on the Hemlocks, used to be gorgeous, but think adelgid and climate related stressors did them in.

That's too bad 41. Any plans for replacements?

57df here today with mostly sunny.

My yard is completely devoid of snow EXCEPT where I now have shade.

It's a tradeoff, no shade, fast ground thaw, needed shade, snow and ice melt more slowly.

Oh well. It's too early for us to get too warm anyways bc the threat of further cold weather is more than likely yet to come. It's good it's taking its time.

"That's too bad 41. Any plans for replacements?"

Not a tree!!! My yard already has a Dawn Redwood, Bald Cypress, Gingko, and five southern magnolias, and they get big and cast a deep, deep shade. The new area will get a ton of sun (year long), I also have to consider DEER. I don't have any flowers anymore, except for a camelia bush and this is the first year the buds were done in by winter. Maybe some ornamental grasses, Yuccas, along with perennial flowers that are deer resistant. We'll see.

We call March the first month of spring even though you can wake up to this on occasion.

A couple more of these forecast the rest of the week but they won't last very long.

Our sun altitude is 40d today, about the same as late September here so when the sun returns after this week and temps rise into the 40's to 50, the rivers will flow.

Good initial soil moisture too.

(This was light, fluffy snow. btw) ;-)

No snow now, it got into the low 80's today, sun at 45 degrees and rising fastest now that it is March. Big chlll down here too coming. Not a big fan of our Spring weather, Autumn seems much more stable.

They're telling us to look out for 50-60 mph winds Thursday night and Friday.

The worst of the storm will be in NE, ND so we might not get it that bad and only lighter snow forecast.

But before that the Midwest is in for another round of severe weather.

Be another week or two before things straighten out here.

At least I was out in the yard for a few days and got some spring prep things done. I even fertilized my new little red pine, the soil was so thawed I could do that. :-)

Bill, you do realize that the US of A is still #1 in the world..., at least in frequency and severity of . tornadoes! We got a number of meteorological factors that converge in our share of North America.

Yeah, but I'd like to be known for something less horrible.

Lived in MN most of my life and never experienced a tornado.

Tornados are actually rare this far north, although occasionally happen.

Hail is more probable but who's counting, I'm ready for spring.

March can be a lion at any time.

4-6" after 7pm here, wind.

2" more monday, then 40s to 50s with sun.

Got 3" fairly light snow last night, winds up to ~20 mph.

Lows of -5 next two mornings.

Any snow we get Tuesday night (<2") will melt by itself and not require snow removal if subsequent temperatures in the forecast are correct.

Normal temperatures overall for this location.

Next anticipated event here will be the completion of ground thaw in all yard areas.

Then I'll have plenty of things to do outside.

#7 puzzle near completion.

6,550 pcs. total assembled, since Oct. ;-)

Snow from latest storm in Marquette CO, Michigan.

I lived ~20 miles south of Marquette MI for a few years.

The picture above is not uncommon at all.

It's lake effect snow with Marquette residing on a narrow peninsula, between two of the great lakes.

Brings back memories.

Thanks beng!

I'd hang mysef if that were my view now, in mid March!

We were completely white this morning (2"+-) then the temperature went back up to 50df with a full beaming 43d sun. By this afternoon we were back to bare lawns.

Got a ton of work done, mostly branch pruning on various trees.

The Keweenaw Peninsula has already received about 330" of snow so far this winter, which, per the info available online, makes 2025/26 the 2nd highest snowfall total on record (behind 1978/79 with 390").

Years ago, I almost took a job teaching AutoCAD in Houghton on the Keweenaw. Don't know why I didn't, but I guess I knew the country from my years near Marquette.

Unless you're someone who really loves the snow, you should probably avoid living in the white areas on this map ;) (eta: the average annual snowfall in the Keweenaw is 20')

Yes, that was a close one! 🤣

Thanks Dave.

After this winter, I HATE the snow. Got all my subtropicals out of the garage about 3 weeks ago. Lost all my bananas except for the Japanese Musa basjoo, LOVE THAT species. We got 12-15 foot clumps of them in my town, they come back every year, huge clumps. All the guy does is cover them in mulch and then coveres them with a tarp. All my Citrus pulled through, as did the Cycads and palms.

Glad to hear that 41!

At least the snow helped eleviate some of the dryness?

We've had several days of 50's and 60's then back to winter with 30's and 40's with teens to 20's for lows. But that's March for you, at least here it is, back and forth winter to spring.

We are a little ahead in the season as I predicted. 😏But maybe only a week or three. The ground is mostly thawed except for a few areas but if the forecasts are correct, I'll have all the sunshades down sometime during or before the first week of April. We might even get some wet, sloppy snow/rain by end of the week which won't stay around too longo but will be appreciated moisture.

Initial application of fertilizer on all plants complete with a tenth or so of rain the following night. Not alot but better than it all sitting on the top of the ground in the sun until Friday.

Some were liquid applications so those went directly into the ground.

Had quite a bit of branch pruning too, it must mean things are growing good. 🤣

PS: Just to finish off the plant tag information.

The best finish ended up to be the ones I put in the muriatic acid fumes.

They didn't look good until they sat outside for a week, then somehow, they turned bright lime greens and aqua blues.

That in itself wasn't good looking but when I took steel wool to them, the hard patina stayed but the letters were now bright green, making them very readable at a distance.

Initial appearance:

After steel wool:

West VA and other mountain areas near me still getting cold temps. Last 12 days or so I've had 15F and two 21F mornings, like 3-29 shown here. Daffodils and such wilted a bit, but not burnt.

After today, we're in for some cool windy days.

The chart shows near a foot of snow but it will be slush, high in water content. Bring it on!

low 80's for a couple of days here, no such thing as "normal'" anymore, anywhere, anyway.. Solar noon altitude is around 55 degrees.

We've had more 'Ups & Downs' temperature wise this spring at least as far back as I can remember.

In a way it's normal for March, what makes it different is the highs are a little higher than normal.

And it has to be hard on plants when there's 4 different times this month, the temperatures go into the high 50's to mid 60's, with sun, for a few to several days, then drops back into the teens and low 20's for a week.

We'll have to wait and see; the ground is still too cold yet for things to grow.

48d sun altitude here. When the sun does come out for a few hours in the afternoon, the temps shoot up 15-20 degrees. The high temps for the last couple of days have surpassed the forecasts for those days by 10 degrees bc it wasn't as cloudy as they thought it would be.

Bill, are you getting this incoming arctic air mass? Tulip trees should be OK, locally, bottoming out at 30 F and it seems that it is below 28 that destroys their flowers, but close. Remind me again, why we don't need a wall between the US and Canada!

Temperatures here lately have been fluctuating just above freezing during the day to just below freezing at night.

The ground is not able to support snow very well at all, at least the paved areas.

When I snow blowed this morning (~4"), the cement driveway was wet underneath and any snow showers we got after that, melted in the streets and driveways as soon as it hit the ground.

Two more chilly nights, Monday and Tuesday mornings, with Tues. AM low of 12d. Then some high 40's and low 50's by the end of the week.

After that, I think, spring has sprung. 😎

I lost all my bananas in my detached/cold garage, except for the containerized Japanese/Musa basjoo, all Citrus and palms were fine. I LOVE this banana species most of all now. I see people in town with large 10-12 foot clumps of them. They mulch the enormous corms in late November and put a tarp over them. I am big on zone pushing, tropicals and subtropicals.

Where I'm at, you can lose plants that are (supposedly) zone hardy. lol:

Congratulations on the basjoo!

Passed by the houses with the basjoos, straw and tarp removed. Corms are HUGE. Wish they coulld hybridize these and create a cold hardy, fruiting one. These Japanese ones obviously produce flowers and some kinda fruit but not edible, they grow them for their fiber.

Why cover them.

Aren't they supposed to be zone 5 hardy?

Bill, this is a WET Zone 7, so may be helpful in keeping excess moisture out of the clump. Impressive though, corms are at least one foot in diameter, eventually, they reach about 15 feet.

19F here morning of the 8th. Alot of my redbud flowers on my lot burned, but not so much a bit higher up. I'm sure a few other species here had buds damaged -- to be seen later. Here's some not-too-far-away mountain temps that morning.

Been kind of 'So-So' here.

It started out like Spring might be on the early side. Now it's been back and forth to early spring temperatures with off and on below freezing at night but that's not unusual this time of year.

Yesterday, when I checked, the frost was out of the ground, and according to the MN DNR, early April is when that happens.

The last of our most recent snow is practically gone and it rained a little yesterday.

I've been out pruning on the white spruce in the front yard (about 5 years overdue). ;-))

Nothing is growing yet (thank goodness), we won't expect that to happen until sometime in May. I see WM has semi loads of gardening products stacked up in the back lot.

A stellar week coming up with RAIN! in the forecast.

Bill, I am not a fan of our "Springs" here, shortest of all the seasons. How is it possiible to be colder in March and early April than November and December. Spring is like 2 weeks max here, then, it's suddenly summer. Autumn is glorious though and never wants to end.

P.S., had a crew in here today to take out my Eastern Hemlocks. Wooly adelgid and climate change were both related to their decline. Was emotional for me to see them cut.

P.S.. 2, Bing, we saw some of the crazy COLD up here, I bottomed out at 33 F but an hour west of me they went down to 19 F. None of this is at altitude here either.

This is the result of the 19F (then next day 25F) freeze did to couple things. Redbuds on my lot and nearby had this, but higher up a bit didn't. A few flower-clusters survived, but many were burned (first pic has loblolly X pitch pine trunk behind).

But black chokeberry, which had leaves almost fully out, suffered no damage at all. Baldcypresses and border stream behind (no, the little stream doesn't help at all -- one redbud closer to the stream had bad damage).

Tulip Magnolias had some issues here but still a lot of nice bloom, their season is very short here, first they have to survive sub freezing temps and then it willl be near 90 F, coming in on Wednesday.

It's really time to start a new thread...but...

echoing what 41 said, this has been one of worst springs ever. We had quite a hard late freeze a week or so ago, that for once, overshot the predicted low temp. (usually, if they forecast 29F, it will be 31 or 32 around here. This time it went down to 27F...I'm using overshoot here to mean, went further in a bad direction!)

and DRY...I'm going to have to start large scale watering today, I can't even wait until this weekend. This is the first time I've ever had to do that kind of watering this early. The prior too dry summers had at least had wet spells in early spring. Not this year. A scary harbinger of what might be to come.

I agree, someone please start a 'Spring Weather Thread 2026' please!

UBG, the whole continental US has a huge amount of dryness/drought. Still, similar conditions existed in the 1930s and 60s. Actually, the 1960s decade of drought was worse in west MD than the 1930s -- I have memories of burnt summer lawns practically every summer then.

Nothing is new under the sun.......