Wednesday, 07 February 2018
Better Safe Than Sorry
The forecast for the last few days was for Wednesday morning to be the coldest of the year with temperatures down to -4.0°C or 24.8°F.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 05-07 February 2018
As it happens it didn't turn out to be so cold but with the temperature falling to -2.1°C (28.2°F) it becomes the coldest day of the year. The coldest day of this year's winter is still -3.2°C (26.2°F) on 11 December 2017.
However, with such a low temperature predicted I thought it wise to move our seed potatoes, which have been set to chit in the greenhouse and summerhouse, into the garage where I think they are a bit more protected from the cold.
The seed trays were placed into some old supermarket boxes and moved to the garage where they were stacked one on top of another and then finally covered over with some old curtain lining for good measure.
My greenhouse thermometer stopped working last autumn and I haven't sorted out a replacement yet so I'm not sure of how low the temperature fell in there but I know that the temperature fell to -1.8°C in the summerhouse.
The temperature over the next few nights isn't forecast to be as cold so I'm intending to move the seed potatoes back into the summerhouse and greenhouse straight away.
Saturday, 10 February 2018
A Sudden Stratospheric Warming - Gardeners Beware!
February has got off to a fairly cold start with temperatures generally below average. It's not been exceptionally cold but daytime temperatures haven't managed to live up to what we might expect.
Temperature Records for February 2018
It's that time of year when as gardeners we're getting that rather irresistible temptation to start sowing some seeds. I'm trying hard to resist and I'm planning on restricting any February sowings to some broad beans, leeks and maybe some early potatoes in sacks. All these will be sown in the greenhouse and they'll grow on in there until some warmer weather arrives. That's my plan.
However, there's another reason why I ought to wait a while before sowing too many seeds. There's a sudden stratospheric warming supposedly taking place this weekend. I'm not going to go into details of this event but if you would like to read about it in more depth there's an article about it here. The end result is that this phenomenon may change our weather pattern and set us up for a cold end of February and early March. As with all weather predictions there's no certainty in the outcome. Certainly anything needing some warmth like tomato seeds will be remaining sealed in their packets for a few weeks yet.
Monday, 12 February 2018
Not My Idea of a Beautiful Day
A couple of BBC weather presenters commented on Sunday night what a beautiful day Sunday had been. In my mind Sunday hadn't been anything at all like a beautiful day as we'd had frequent showers of rain, sleet or snow and a strong to gale force bitingly cold wind.
Temperature, Wind Chill and Rainfall Records for 11 February 2018
For most of the day the temperature wasn't much above freezing and the wind chill knocked a couple of degrees off that.
Overnight into Monday morning we've had a dusting of snow.
Monday, 12 February 2018
The forecast doesn't hold out much hope of the temperatures improving very much over the next few days. Tomorrow looks like there might be a bit of snow about.
Precipitation Type Forecast from netweather.tv
Gardening activities continue to be on hold!