Snow, Snow and more snow.
This has been one of the snowiest winters ever recorded. Not just here, but most of the country has seen its share of snow including the deep-south and even the hills of San Francisco, CA for the first time in 35 years. Time and again we get some sunny weather and the snow & ice melt – but this is short-lived as more snow comes in 4 inches one day and 3 inches a couple of days later. There seems to be no end in sight.
Many structures have collapsed due to the heavy snow build-up this winter. I measured 30 inches on the garage roof in mid February and it got me nervous. I ended up going up there and shoveling the majority of the snow off, but it was no easy task. Shoveling a roof or even using a snow rake is exhausting and gets downright painful to do. Snow removal is one of the hardest jobs you could ever do.
The days have lengthened considerably with it still being bright after 5:30 PM. The green house gets direct sun around 9:30 AM and temps inside are above freezing by 10:30 AM. While it’s still too early to set plants out in the green house, it can be a cheery warm place to do odd jobs outdoors as it gets into the mid 60s around 1:00 PM.
These winter days are a great time to work on the computer and retrieve weather data. I’ve managed to browse all of the spring and fall freeze dates since 2007:
5/14/2007 29.7 degrees 9/30/2007 32.0 degrees
5/05/2008 32.3 degrees 9/20/2008 31.8 degrees
5/19/2009 29.3 degrees 9/26/2009 31.9 degrees
5/11/2010 26.4 degrees 10/13/2010 30.1 degrees
On a hunch, I was curious to know what the moon phase was for each of those dates. I was astounded to find a direct correlation in both the spring and fall dates! All of the spring freezes happened on or just before the new moon. All of the fall freezing temps occurred when the moon was half full or just a few days after.
Based on the above observations, I have gone ahead and studied the moon phase calendar for 2011 and have made the following predictions:
May 6, 2011 should be the last freeze for May – however there could be a late frost on June 1, 2011.
September 3 into 4, 2011 could get down to 34 degrees, however the first fall freeze will not be until October 5, 2011.
I can’t wait to see if this works!
:)
