Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Not quite below zero

Our low temperature on the morning of Wednesday, May 28th was 0.014°C at 6:00 am, thus we just managed to stay above freezing.

However, remember that the temperature at the UW weather station is measured at 2 m above the ground (this is the worldwide standard). So your plants, that are most likely closer to the ground, may have some frost damage.

If you did inspect you annuals this morning and can report on the frost damage please leave a comment below.

At the Environment Canada weather station at the Waterloo-Wellington airport they reported a temperature of -1°C at 6:00 am meaning that there is going to be a 3 week difference in our calculations of the last frost day this year.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you think that the changes in terrain around the weather station (adding more water) would have contributed to the difference between the weatherstation and the airport?

Frank said...

As a background for people that don't know, andrewk is referring to the modification of the lake around the weather station.

We used to be on a peninsula that went into Columbia Lake, but a few years back they put in a bypass for the water and thus the weather station is now on an island.

I don't know if the recent changes around the weather station have made all that much of a difference.

However, the fact that we are located so close to a large body of water in general may moderate the temperatures at the station.

The other factor is that I've been told that the weather station at the airport is located in a bit of a gully and thus cold air collects around the station.

As a result the airport station always seems one or two degrees colder than us in the morning.

This discrepancy is always more noticeable when those few degrees makes the difference between a frost or frost-free day.

Anonymous said...

No frost at our place, but we are on high ground. My parents had ice in their birdbath, but no frost damage since they protected the tender annuals. Luckily, many people are behind on their planting due to the wet weekend weather.