Polar Vortex Jan 2025 - Are you preparing your palms?

January 1

Happy New Year guys 2025!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

January 1

2 minutes ago, PaPalmTrees said:

Happy New Year guys 2025!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy New Year to you too! Though we still have another hour before the new year starts in Texas.

January 1

25 minutes ago, PaPalmTrees said:

Happy New Year guys 2025!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy New Year! For me almost 7 hours of that year are already gone. 😂

January 1

1 minute ago, Arecaceus said:

Happy New Year! For me almost 7 hours of that year are already gone. 😂

Lol

January 1

Still Dec. 31 here for a bit more than an hour. I'm going to turn in. Happy New Year.

January 1

May 2025 brings the winds of change, and may those winds be in our favor!

Happy New Year

January 1

I would relax a bit on the cold coming.

As we all know, the “winter fans” in the meteorology world (weather forecasters who live for the 90 days of winter) …tend to hype winter weather to the extreme. Additionally, we all know how the models often compute the extreme, and can end up being a good distance from what eventually occurs. Add the two together (pro winter weathercasters and wild computer predictions) …and looking at something 10 days away is often in fantasy land. I agree with the OP – still smart to be prepared.

Not sure about locations in the center of the mainland, but the models and the media were hyping extreme cold for the December 21 – 23 cold shot. Wild predictions of near 0 F in NYC and 40 F in Miami were all of the news. In the end NYC fell 13 F …and Miami fell to 54 F (for 53 minutes. Lol).

I would wait until 8^th or 9^th and see if any unusual cold is still in the models.

Sun is out here in Ocean City, cool today with highs near 50 F.

ghty.jpg.88194b44ed467c7f44cb4a0544f11c61.jpg

January 1

37 minutes ago, Subtropical LIS said:

I would relax a bit on the cold coming.

As we all know, the “winter fans” in the meteorology world (weather forecasters who live for the 90 days of winter) …tend to hype winter weather to the extreme. Additionally, we all know how the models often compute the extreme, and can end up being a good distance from what eventually occurs. Add the two together (pro winter weathercasters and wild computer predictions) …and looking at something 10 days away is often in fantasy land. I agree with the OP – still smart to be prepared.

Not sure about locations in the center of the mainland, but there the models and the media were hyping extreme cold for the December 21 – 23 cold shots. Wild predictions of near 0 F in NYC and 40 F in Miami were all of the news. In the end NYC fell 13 F …and Miami fell to 54 F (for 53 minutes. Lol).

I would wait until 8^th or 9^th and see if any unusual cold is still in the models.

Yeah, It was supposed to get down to 8 degrees here And now it's only getting down to 15.

January 1

Vor 2 Stunden sagte Dartolution:

Möge das Jahr 2025 den Wind der Veränderung bringen und möge dieser Wind zu unserem Gunsten wehen!

Frohes Neues Jahr

Dartolution: yes, how true in every way 😀.

January 1

we are now prepared up on the balcony and down in the community garden. nevertheless, we hope that the forecasts with such low temperatures will not apply here, in texas or in other parts, i.e. everywhere, and that it can be weakened by warmer currents, whereby the slowing down of the jet stream will inevitably prolong the low-pressure phases, or am i not interpreting it quite correctly ? there are several factors involved ...
let's hope for the best 🙂

we wish everyone a happy new year with health, happiness and continued success.

January 1

A palmy 2025 for everyone!!

Hope this is the first year this L Nitida won't lose any leaves in winter! It's starting to look good (forecast-wise for its home in C. Texas and the palm as well).

January 1

Happy New Year!

The forecast seems to moderating a ton lol. Seems up in air if Houston will even see a freeze at this point in time. Anyways, I managed to mummify my exposed mango. Not going to protect anything else...they'll just have to get by under the oak canopy. Will check back in February.. .

January 1

On 12/31/2024 at 2:19 AM, Xenon said:

I'm really liking the latest GFS runs...an imaginary hand is pushing all of the cold into MS/AL/FL and sparing Texas 😝. Hopefully not landscape changing cold for anyone but maybe the weather gods are finally taking pity on TX lol.

I haven't really done anything yet and actually just added some organic fertilizer and mulch to the very hungry queen palms and citrus trees which should bloom in another 6-8 weeks or so. Will add some lights to the tropical fruit trees tomorrow. Not feeling so doom and gloom as of now, we'll see

Zero signs of even a kiss of frost here so far even in the Arctic West suburbs of Houston. The bananas are as green as can be and even better looking than summer even. Neighbor's indestructible Ficus elastica rubra shrub is pristine as well

The African blue basil and spicy Jatropha are still blooming their heads off in the Bizzie bed. There's a Ficus elastica 'Honduras' in there too

by the way, your other plants are great too. and you certainly have less absolute minimum temperatures now than at your former place of residence. probably around 11.3 °f at worst and the cold phases (frostdays) are shorter than in houston tx, right ?

January 1

8 minutes ago, Xenon said:

The forecast seems to moderating a ton lol.

Spoke to a prof at Atmospheric Sciences at TAMU at our New years party and he thinks CS will likely stay in 30s, however, wait till we're 5 days out for more certainty. Mostly does data modeling for hurricanes but I think I got 'm interested in polar vortices, hehe.

Awesome yard, Xenon. This is your work in Houston, I assume?

January 1

27 minutes ago, Xenon said:

Happy New Year!

The forecast seems to moderating a ton lol. Seems up in air if Houston will even see a freeze at this point in time. Anyways, I managed to mummify my exposed mango. Not going to protect anything else...they'll just have to get by under the oak canopy. Will check back in February.. .

yes, the garden looks wonderful, thanks to your work. i like the expression mummified when protecting the mango plant 😁

January 1

56 minutes ago, Mazat said:

by the way, your other plants are great too. and you certainly have less absolute minimum temperatures now than at your former place of residence. probably around 11.3 °f at worst and the cold phases (frostdays) are shorter than in houston tx, right ?

No no, quite the opposite. This is the yard in west Houston @Swolte, much warmer in Houston than Mississippi haha (I go back and forth a lot).

January 1

18 minutes ago, Xenon said:

No no, quite the opposite. This is the yard in west Houston @Swolte, much warmer in Houston than Mississippi haha (I go back and forth a lot).

Okay, then i mixed something up🤔

January 1

17 hours ago, Dartolution said:

I have been watching this diligently and it is giving me whiplash. A few days ago we were in the teens for my area of Alabama, then in the mid/upper 20's, now low 20's.... 😬

It would be nice to go through a winter without having 50% or more of the palms defoliate due to record lows.....

At least they survived I suppose.

You've planned the landscaping wrong. 90% has to be bulletproof. The other 10% can be "zone-pushed" or delicate for your area.

USDA has my minimum around 12°F. But the map came out a year after I hit 5°F.

January 1

12 minutes ago, SeanK said:

You've planned the landscaping wrong. 90% has to be bulletproof. The other 10% can be "zone-pushed" or delicate for your area.

USDA has my minimum around 12°F. But the map came out a year after I hit 5°F.

Gardening when the danger of losing half of what is planted becomes at risk of failing, is no fun. Enthusiasm subsides rather quickly, and money is wasted.

January 1

Or maybe I should protect my palms? (Centigrades) but only my coconut palm and my Attalea butyracea.

20250101_150717.jpg.2ba80f55016f0a6b2b188126b1b59766.jpg

January 1

This morning KHOU was hyping up wet snow or freezing rain here. I hate how weather forecasters do that crap. But then at the end he said "it's so far out we can't accurately predict it, we'll know better in another 5 days or so"

At the moment I'm seeing no overnight lows below freezing. Probably some frost, and daytime highs in the upper 40s or low 50s. That doesn't scare me.

January 2

On 12/30/2024 at 8:19 PM, Xenon said:

I'm really liking the latest GFS runs...an imaginary hand is pushing all of the cold into MS/AL/FL and sparing Texas 😝. Hopefully not landscape changing cold for anyone but maybe the weather gods are finally taking pity on TX lol.

I haven't really done anything yet and actually just added some organic fertilizer and mulch to the very hungry queen palms and citrus trees which should bloom in another 6-8 weeks or so. Will add some lights to the tropical fruit trees tomorrow. Not feeling so doom and gloom as of now, we'll see

Zero signs of even a kiss of frost here so far even in the Arctic West suburbs of Houston. The bananas are as green as can be and even better looking than summer even. Neighbor's indestructible Ficus elastica rubra shrub is pristine as well

The African blue basil and spicy Jatropha are still blooming their heads off in the Bizzie bed. There's a Ficus elastica 'Honduras' in there too

Bring it on, Florida can handle it. The South guys at least. 🥶

January 2

3 hours ago, idontknowhatnametuse said:

Or maybe I should protect my palms? (Centigrades) but only my coconut palm and my Attalea butyracea.

Nice. Consistent temps in the 20s starting January. See what happens Tue/Wed next week.

January 2

13 hours ago, Arecaceus said:

This sounds a bit dramatic tbh. Even if it was all going down like this, it wouldn't be a "complete palm wipe out event for central and eastern Europe" and Trachies wouldn't be "gone in Germany". Most Trachies are planted in the mild areas and Trachies have survived worse, going through many decades and the worst of cold blasts like the one in the late 1980s. People who live in non-suitable areas are most likely protecting their palms anyway.

Also I don't understand why you point out Munich. Munich is notorious for having a harsh climate just because of crazy temp fluctuations alone. In spring temps jump up and down from Foehn inluenced summer weather to hard frosts within days. Munich also isn't a big palm planting place to begin with.

What the GFS model was showing was definitely palm wipeout territory. It had 2+ weeks below freezing with -15C / 5F or lower in many, many areas of Germany. All time minimum's were under threat on those charts. And a lot of nights in the -10C to -15C range. As I previously said, in mid-winter you can usually take another 2-3C off those charts for the coldest of nights, just as you can add 2-3C on the warmest of days in summer. So if -17C is showing for somewhere on the GFS for the coldest night, I would expect -19C or -20C. Munich was showing -24C so that would have been about -26C if it wee to come off.

An event like what was being signalled on the GFS would have defoliated Trachy's. It was basically like the February 2018 'Beast from the East' event but about 3 x longer in duration. We were talking about a record breaking mid-winter freeze, based on what the models were showing. Thankfully it has been toned down massively now on recent runs and the freeze duration especially doesn't look anywhere near as long. However both the GFS and ECM continue to show quite a lot of cold, below average weather, especially for you guys. Even for northern England it looks very, very cold. The Leeds CIDP will be tested.

The first bit of cold air is just arriving now with the first nighttime frosts of winter for us here. Warmer conditions return on Sunday, briefly, but then it gets cold again. Later next week will be the test though. Still a lot of uncertainty about how cold it is going to get. I wouldn't rule anything out at this point, even if the models aren't showing the same extent of cold as they were 36-48 hours ago.

January 2

9 hours ago, idontknowhatnametuse said:

Or maybe I should protect my palms? (Centigrades) but only my coconut palm and my Attalea butyracea.

I wish I always had these temperatures 😆

January 2

33 minutes ago, DTS said:

I wish I always had these temperatures 😆

Winter here is a nightmare because temperature goes crazy.. Most days are normally around 11°C and 25°C but there have been winter days in which we hit 40°C. Extreme heat is a bad sign in winter because it's a sign of an incoming freeze.

January 2

15 hours ago, Chester B said:

This morning KHOU was hyping up wet snow or freezing rain here. I hate how weather forecasters do that crap. But then at the end he said "it's so far out we can't accurately predict it, we'll know better in another 5 days or so"

At the moment I'm seeing no overnight lows below freezing. Probably some frost, and daytime highs in the upper 40s or low 50s. That doesn't scare me.

To be honest this polar vortex isn't going to do any severe damage in our area unless you planted 10a/b palms . Even if the low temperatures are 10° degrees off I'm still having a good day. On average we get about 2 severe cold snaps in winter. We aren't out of the woods yet until it's mid February. So far nothing looks alarming .

January 2

At the moment we have 10 Grad Celsius/50 F.

And this:

The foehn or foehn wind is a warm, dry downslope wind that often occurs on the side facing away from the wind direction - the leeward side - of larger mountains. It usually occurs over a large area in weather conditions with pressure gradients across the mountains. It can blow steadily, but can also be gusty.

The term Föhn originates from the German-speaking Alpine region and has become established as a meteorological term for corresponding wind events. There are numerous different regional names for both the Alpine foehn and corresponding weather phenomena elsewhere in the world.

The true foehn must be distinguished from the similarly warm and dry "foehn-like" high-altitude current and other foehn-like downslope winds induced by pressure gradients in storm lows, for example.

I got the license plate about 15 years ago at a classic car show.
I focus on positive warm temperatures here. Thinking and imagining positively often helps in many cases😃

January 2

4 minutes ago, Mazat said:

At the moment we have 10 Grad Celsius/50 F.

And this:

The foehn or foehn wind is a warm, dry downslope wind that often occurs on the side facing away from the wind direction - the leeward side - of larger mountains. It usually occurs over a large area in weather conditions with pressure gradients across the mountains. It can blow steadily, but can also be gusty.

The term Föhn originates from the German-speaking Alpine region and has become established as a meteorological term for corresponding wind events. There are numerous different regional names for both the Alpine foehn and corresponding weather phenomena elsewhere in the world.

The true foehn must be distinguished from the similarly warm and dry "foehn-like" high-altitude current and other foehn-like downslope winds induced by pressure gradients in storm lows, for example.

I got the license plate about 15 years ago at a classic car show.
I focus on positive warm temperatures here. Thinking and imagining positively often helps in many cases😃

A little bit off topic I'd like to see some snow . Growing up in the colder parts of Europe I'm getting tired of 9 months of hot to very hot weather and mild winters. But it is what it is I'm here not by choice . The only thing beneficial to me is that I'm able to grow palms and here I am hanging with you guys .

January 2

@MarcusH you should take up skiing! Colorado and New Mexico are not too far away and you could enjoy the snow a bit each winter and return to muggy, palmy San Antonio afterwards!

Photo from last week in the Sandia’s just east of Albuquerque.

January 2

11 minutes ago, ChrisA said:

@MarcusH you should take up skiing! Colorado and New Mexico are not too far away and you could enjoy the snow a bit each winter and return to muggy, palmy San Antonio afterwards!

Photo from last week in the Sandia’s just east of Albuquerque.

I miss the snow. Sounds like a good idea. I drove to NM multiple times it's such a beautiful place . I haven't seen the Rockies in CO yet. I saw a good amount of Washies growing in Las Cruces and as far as Albuquerque

January 2

3 hours ago, MarcusH said:

I'd like to see some snow . Growing up in the colder parts of Europe I'm getting tired of 9 months of hot to very hot weather and mild winters.

Not me. Even the few light dustings a year we would get in Portland was too much for me. I haven't seen real snow in 10 years, and don't miss the cold and the slush and salted roads - No thanks. I'll take running the AC in December, it's a novel concept to me but I'm enjoying it.

January 2

13 hours ago, UK_Palms said:

What the GFS model was showing was definitely palm wipeout territory. It had 2+ weeks below freezing with -15C / 5F or lower in many, many areas of Germany. All time minimum's were under threat on those charts. And a lot of nights in the -10C to -15C range. As I previously said, in mid-winter you can usually take another 2-3C off those charts for the coldest of nights, just as you can add 2-3C on the warmest of days in summer. So if -17C is showing for somewhere on the GFS for the coldest night, I would expect -19C or -20C. Munich was showing -24C so that would have been about -26C if it wee to come off.

An event like what was being signalled on the GFS would have defoliated Trachy's. It was basically like the February 2018 'Beast from the East' event but about 3 x longer in duration. We were talking about a record breaking mid-winter freeze, based on what the models were showing. Thankfully it has been toned down massively now on recent runs and the freeze duration especially doesn't look anywhere near as long. However both the GFS and ECM continue to show quite a lot of cold, below average weather, especially for you guys. Even for northern England it looks very, very cold. The Leeds CIDP will be tested.

The first bit of cold air is just arriving now with the first nighttime frosts of winter for us here. Warmer conditions return on Sunday, briefly, but then it gets cold again. Later next week will be the test though. Still a lot of uncertainty about how cold it is going to get. I wouldn't rule anything out at this point, even if the models aren't showing the same extent of cold as they were 36-48 hours ago.

The GFS is a global weather model. And just one model. A 2 weeks forecast is only to be seen as a possibility and the general change of weather in an area. It needs several weather models or a much more detailed one to predict the weather accuartely in an area. It still includes meterologists and gathered historical data from a weather forecast company to give a more accurate outlook. What a GFS model is telling is only that there is a very likely chance of very cold weather coming in. If the model shows -20 for an area making assumptions of it turning out to be even 2-3° colder is useless because the model is only a model and not a final forecast. Raw weather models always go into the extremes of hot and cold. I compared the outlooks of several weather models for my area and for that time period there were predictions rangeing from -10°C lows to +10°C lows as well as very mild days and sub zero days but most models were showing light night frosts with positive temps during the day. Just how the forecast is looking now. It doesn't mean that this can't change still but that's a way more accurate way of looking into future weather when everything is still possible anyway. No need to panic or overhype.

I'm pretty sure Munich has seen such lows. Dresden has dropped to -26°C once (idk where the weather station is located). But those are not palm growing areas where people grow Trachies unprotected. Also defoliation is not a complete wipe out. Also in my area palms have survived since the 1960s as far as I know even outside the city. Weather predictions also don't take into account urban areas. That's why London gets forecasts that are turning out warmer in central London in most of the urbanised area. Some weather forecast providers take this more into account though.

If you mean winter excluding the early frost in November then yes this is correct. But we had a short early cold blast in late November that brought frost and it came over from the UK. The upcoming days we will all get cold from the North Sea but my forecast doesn't look too different from the one in South England. I get clouds and precipitation though. I'm expecting the next frost of 0°C/-1°C only in the night of Saturday/Sunday. After that it goes up to 14°C before the real cold comes. But so far it doesn't look a lot different from what's coming to parts of South England.

January 2

Just covered up my 2 Sagos For the cold It's gonna get around 15 degrees in a few days.

January 2

2 hours ago, Chester B said:

Not me. Even the few light dustings a year we would get in Portland was too much for me. I haven't seen real snow in 10 years, and don't miss the cold and the slush and salted roads - No thanks. I'll take running the AC in December, it's a novel concept to me but I'm enjoying it.

Coming from a place that looks a lot like Northern California and Oregon with 4 seasons , if it wouldn't be for my wife I would have never put my feet down on Texas soil. Landscape wise is a huge downgrade and it seems to be that Texas gets hotter and hotter in the summer with increasing numbers of severe droughts that has impact on all kinds of vegetation. We're losing cypress trees along our rivers. Lakes are drying out as well as rivers. Texas is turning more and more into a desert . But each to their own I'll take a few months of cold with rain/snow and overcast sky over hiding 6 months inside the house. San Antonians jump from one AC cooled room to the next one. Barely see anyone outside after 12pm . I can protect myself from the cold and I still manage to do a lot more outdoor activities than I can do here bc it's just miserably hot for too long in Texas lol. I took walks for miles when it was in the low teens but not here when it gets in the 90s and 100s . I always feel like I'm overheating . Yeah you can grow palms here but I can live without them just fine. I've done it for 40 years.

January 2

Not concerned about a "polar vortex" up here by the South Dakota / Iowa border, but time to start mulching in the Sabal minors for winter. Since late November it has been a typical fall with about a dozen nights in the single digits down to 3f (-16C). But winter will eventually show up so here goes:

January 2

8 minutes ago, westfork said:

Not concerned about a "polar vortex" up here by the South Dakota / Iowa border, but time to start mulching in the Sabal minors for winter. Since late November it has been a typical fall with about a dozen nights in the single digits down to 3f (-16C). But winter will eventually show up so here goes:

What zone are you out there?

January 2

We used to be a solid zone 4b, then until the 2024 map were on the 4b/5a border, now just inside 5a. But on the edge of the Great Plains it is the rapid changes that do the most damage. Going from near 90 to single digits f and back again in mid October kills more plants than -30 f in mid winter.

January 2

26 minutes ago, westfork said:

... But winter will eventually show up so here goes:

Well I never thought or expected lava rock to be an insulator. When ever I've purchased it, it's always been in bulk from a top soil/landscape yard.

January 2

3 hours ago, MarcusH said:

... Texas is turning more and more into a desert . But each to their own ...

Nice place to visit, but 100°F for months on end does not seem like a particularly gardening friendly environment. If I got stuck there it'd be xeriscape desert plantings for ease of care.

WELCOME GUEST

Polar Vortex Jan 2025 - Are you preparing your palms?

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