Arctic Freeze coming to California

[nullzero]

I think the worst of the winter will be behind us after this storm. Next week there seems to be a warming trend in the forecast Highs: 70s Lows: 40s. Just a few days of this!

[MangoFang]

HARRY - too bad you didn't have enough time to pop out to Palm Springs
for basking by the pool!

Seriously, you're always welcome at the tiny Hunter Mango Ranch....
by the way it's almost 7 o'clock now and we're approaching
41 degrees....yeah, it's gonna get real nippy tonight .   I've double
covered a couple of my younger mangos.....this will be interesting....

Fang

[CoPlantNut]

I'm hoping everything goes well for the Californians; Colorado is experiencing the same arctic air blast and it is 7 degrees Fahrenheit outside my house right now.  But, it is a balmy 89F and 80% humidity in my basement plant room, which was really nice to warm up in after shoveling snow this evening...

Keep those tropicals warm!

[ScottR]

CoplantNut, sounds like you've got the best of both worlds going there in Co. Was 29.4 this morning and we've got a few more nights maybe a little colder so time will tell as Harry mentioned, but top canopy leaves on cherimoya's are fried. Most of the Avocado's look fine so far.

[amadioranch]

16 degrees?? How bad does this suck? I dont even want to go survey the damage. Growing tropicals in Phoenix can be a sad exercise!

[MangoFang]

Hi Amadio - this is myamberdog - mangofang in this forum....

Wow - 16 DOES suck!!!!!! Although I thought you were on the outskirts of Phoenix
where you don't get that ambient heat that concrete and buildings give off.....ANd I
thought you gave them extra heat in the greenhouse they were in - what was the temp
inside that structure???

Yeah, I was real worrited last night too - it was 41 degrees by around 6 pm last night,
but a strange thing happened, some clouds moved in and by 8 pm it was back up to
46!  Then they kind of peeled away and it was back to 41 around 10 pm.

The bottom line is I didn't get up till 7 am thismorning and the temp. was 38.5, which
to me means it only got down like to 35 at my house early in the morning, so I'm still
happy.

TOnight is supposed to be colder....wonder how others are doing around here....



Fang

[amadioranch]

The greenhouse is for vegetables, all my tropicals are outside. I build heated frost structures around them. The top number (16) is the outside air temp, the middle number is the temp inside the frost structure, and the bottom number is humidity. Cold is a funny thing, we get some pretty impressive lows around here and I find that I really dont run into much trouble till it gets down below 25. My guess is that it tends to get and stay cold around these parts, usually not rising much above 60 during the day and below 30 every night from mid December till the end of February. I believe that this keeps tropicals in a dormant, hardened off state that makes them less vulnerable than in other places (like Florida) where its still getting quite warm and then one night WHAM!

 Yes its a pain in the ass keeping things going for a few months of the year but there are advantages. I estimate that we get 800+ chill hours. Its kinda cool to have mangoes, sapotes, passionfruit harvesting next to cherries, apples, persimmons, pears, etc. 

[HMHausman]

HARRY - too bad you didn't have enough time to pop out to Palm Springs
for basking by the pool!

Seriously, you're always welcome at the tiny Hunter Mango Ranch....
Fang

Thanks for the invite...but we native South Floridians don't do much basking when the temps are below 60, never mind if it is in the 40's.  Will have to catch you on a later trip when temps are more basking-friendly.

[Californiatropicals]

I think the worst of the winter will be behind us after this storm. Next week there seems to be a warming trend in the forecast Highs: 70s Lows: 40s. Just a few days of this!

They are way off! Don't get me wrong, I am glad about it.. last night was supposed to be 30 degrees.. nothing at all got burned... even the "monstera" looks fine.. tonight is supposed to be colder according to my phone app and accuweather..so far the most reliable temps I've gotten have come from "wunderground"  they predict tonight will be 34.. that seems about right.  Hopefully I won't get a rude surprised.. lol

[Xeno]

Tonight is supposed to 28-33 degrees here. The coldest it has even been since I can remember. All my plants will be uncovered. Only bringing 3 in (coffee, wax apple, and acerlola) the house. I'm mentally preparing myself to see any damage tomorrow morning. Prepare yourselves Californians!

[nullzero]

Well I just got my first two losses. Both Acai Palms look dead, I was thinking of putting them next to a window last week . Wax Jambu also shed most of its green leaves, it looks very much alive though . I think its going to push new growth when the cold goes away. Marula are not looking to good right now.

Moved in a bunch of seedlings, Abiu seedlings, Monkey Orange seedlings, etc.

[JF]

16 degrees?? How bad does this suck? I dont even want to go survey the damage. Growing tropicals in Phoenix can be a sad exercise!

16Fholy sh@$!!! this is extreme weather, about as cold as I've felt it in Socal. what tropicals are you growing outside?

with the exception of leave burn on the top of my rollinas everything looks good. I will cover my rollinas tonight! Forecast low for tomorrow morning 35F !!

[amadioranch]

16 is extreme but it does happen here every so many winters.

 We are growing 5-6 different cultivars of mango, 2 types of sapotes, fejioa, starfruit, barbados cherry, passionfruit, guava, allspice, cinnamon, pineapple, banana, cherimoya, 6 types of loquat, etc.

 We also grow all the typical stone and pomme fruits too. I estimate we see around 800 chill hours here. We are in a severe cold spot on the outskirts of the city. In town they are lucky to see 350 chill hours.

[Californiatropicals]

Sorry about your acai loss NZ.  It's especially hard when grown from seed!  Even more so because palm seeds seem finicky to start from seed, I was under the impression that acai is ultra tropical. Have you tried "zola's" Acai juice? it's really good! expensive.. but definitely worth it. Believe its like 6 bucks for a bottle... but acai is the main ingredient..

[MangoFang]

......I don't know.....it's strange....how can it be 35.4 when I go to bed at 11 pm
and be only 34 come 7 am in the morning?

Their must be different kinds of cold.  A few weeks ago it was 39 when I went
to bed and I got up to a  29.7 reading for a similarly predicted 35 degree low,
but last night's low seemed to be muich higher.

I think living next to a tall mountain the cold air flows in different ways.  LIke this huge
artic front that moved in now sweeps over everything and yet at other times there seems to
be much colder experience in my yard when at the end of day the warm air escapes
from the valley floor and cold air drains down the mountainside to replace it....

In any case, I seem to be OK thismorning, in this f_ _ _ ing freeze up!

 

F _ _ _ ing Cold Fang

[MangoFang]

Amadio - can't imagine what you hit this morning...

ANd JF....

.....TIm, Nullzie, Xeno, CTropicals, CoPlantg....how did you
guys fair?

Anyone here from Jacob13 out there in Santa Barbara?


GFang

[ScottR]

Woke up this morning @ 5:30 temp. was 37f and by 7am dropped to 30f not to bad but the fastest drop I ever saw. Monday and Tues supposed to 29f then we'll start to warm up.

[JF]

Amadio - can't imagine what you hit this morning...

ANd JF....

.....TIm, Nullzie, Xeno, CTropicals, CoPlantg....how did you
guys fair?

Anyone here from Jacob13 out there in Santa Barbara?


GFang

Hey MangoDog

38F at 5:30am and I went back to sleep too cold for me....one more days of this bullsh%@. The las 4 days have been coldest in my 35 years in Socal. I don't remember being this cold since I went to Miami in 1983 to visit my family. It was 32F on Christmas day! Everything looks good for nextweek we are forecast to hit 83F on Thursday, this global warming is killing me!

[Californiatropicals]

No frost at all this morning.. accuweather and a few other websites were predicting 27 here last night

[MangoFang]

Scott - interesting that you say that - I notice my temperature went down after 7 am
and then pulled back up, too???

Maybe the cold air swirls in some haphazard fashion with this kind of front- 

But like JF says, it IS going to warm up after Tuesday
(I hope!)

So you guys think tonight will be the worst of it?
Going to check a few sites-Accuweather, WeatherUnderground, local reports
to see what's up......

But.....on the bright side....isn't that sun simply gorgeous today?


MFang

[Californiatropicals]

Scott - interesting that you say that - I notice my temperature went down after 7 am
and then pulled back up, too???

Maybe the cold air swirls in some haphazard fashion with this kind of front- 

But like JF says, it IS going to warm up after Tuesday
(I hope!)

So you guys think tonight will be the worst of it?
Going to check a few sites-Accuweather, WeatherUnderground, local reports
to see what's up......

But.....on the bright side....isn't that sun simply gorgeous today?


MFang

the sun is GORGEOUS today... I honestly can't wait til summer.. I've never liked winter.. it's not as much the mild cold.. but the lack of daylight hours!  and I'm thankful nothing got frosted last night

[CoPlantNut]

Amadio - can't imagine what you hit this morning...

ANd JF....

.....TIm, Nullzie, Xeno, CTropicals, CoPlantg....how did you
guys fair?

Anyone here from Jacob13 out there in Santa Barbara?


GFang

My plants are all fine; the tropicals have been indoors for months now being coddled with heat and humidity.  They wouldn't last 5 minutes outside at this point.

Yesterday's high was 16F with a low of -9F, and today's high is supposed to be 14F, but tomorrow things are supposed to warm up to 19F!

As cold as it is here, it isn't cold enough to help out the forests up in the mountains...  We used to get a nearly-annual week of -25F temperatures (with -10F being the high during the day) and that would be cold enough to kill off most of the pine beetles eating the trees in the mountains.  For the past 15 years we haven't had enough sustained cold to kill the beetles, so the beetles are decimating the forests. There are millions of acres of dead trees just a few miles west of me, just waiting to catch on fire.  Global warming at work!

   Kevin

[nullzero]

Well this cold has not been as bad, as initially thought for me. The bad.... Acai palms dead, many Kangkong cold burnt back to the water edge. Marula cold burn leaves and defoliated, hoping it recovers. Tumeric, tops died off (this happens, should resprout from rhizomes). Wax jambu shed 90% of its leaves, it looks like alive though. I wouldn't be surprised to see flush of new growth in 2-3wks.

The good, mangoes all sailed through this. Guavas all good just reddish coloration on the leaves from cold. Lucuma looking good. All the cactus fruits looking good. Sharkfin melon some die back, core of plant is healthy... Still holding fruit! Tender seedlings all babied indoors.

[Xeno]

The good, mangoes all sailed through this. Guavas all good just reddish coloration on the leaves from cold. All the cactus fruits looking good.

This is pretty much what happened to me. My update: Wax apple lost about 4 leaves, mangoes fine, suebelle sapote fine, cactus fine, longan fine, and the only damage would be my star fruit tree which has lost 35% of the leaves. My cherimoya has lost 100% of leaves and is having trunk dieback. My Madonna sponsored Holiday avocado is still fine.

[JF]

I have not assess the total damage but I took a peek of the sapodillas and the rollinas and  it appears that the top leave on the upper canopies are fried! All the other trees look fine.