Hate to break this to you, Kawaiineko gardener, while there is a technical last and first frost date for Boyne City and the rest of northern Michigan, these are just averages, and ... well, as we all know, there are always outliers. Frost can and does happen every month in your part of Michigan. My uncle lives about an hour south of you near Cadillac, in a place called Tustin, and my sister lives just outside of Manistee. Both of them have had hard freezes in mid to late June and again in early September, and both have reported frost even in July and August, albeit light ones that didn't really hurt anything. It happens. Last year was especially challenging up there, with late, hard freezes in May and hard frosts in June. My uncle lost his garden twice to frosts, first around Memorial Day, and then again about 3 weeks later after he had replanted. Both of them said it was really hard to find transplants at the local greenhouses because everyone got wiped out and had to do it all over again at least one time, some people twice. The year that my sister moved up there for good, 1993, they also had 4 inches of snow on August 28th, although it melted away by 10:00 the next morning. We had it really cold, wet, and windy the same day, with a high around 48 and a low around 42, but no snowflakes, thank goodness. And, it turned around and got up to like 93 the next week. Michigan weather is just plain WIERD. I hope this year will be better. Even down here near Detroit it was COLD, COLD, COLD all summer. July had several nights where the thermometer in my backyard hovered around 38 degrees, just above the point frost could begin to form.

Renee - LOL! Amen to that. As of April 11, we have a 50% chance of frost. By April 26, that drops to 10%. Last year, we had a cool night around May 17, but no frost. This year, we haven't had a frost since March 9. We've been near freezing several times, but no frost. In the fall, we usually get a late October or early November frost. Had a very light one this year in November. The killing frost came on December 5. You can find the numbers for your zone here. NCDC. Choose your state, then find your town on the pdf file that pops up.

Well, this week is going to be warm here, but then it sounds like it's going to turn a lot colder next weekend. It could all depend on whether or not it stays cloudy at night. I moved a whole lot of things outside this weekend. Had to do it, they needed to go out and I needed the space in the greenhouses.

I focus on the 32F, Bonnie, but it becomes the "town closest," or to the hill above the town, to the neighborhood, to out front/under the tree . . . The frost will form on the roof of the vehicle in the driveway but there will be none on the lawn on the other side of the fence - with the same blue sky above. We can say that the dandelion, or any plant, is simply responding to what has been happening in its immediate environment. Of course, that is not a 100% indication of what "will happen" in its environment. But, what can be valued in the phenological signs are the immediateness in space and time of plant responses. About 30 days ago, something happened which set another something in motion for the plant. Given certain conditions, another so many days will pass and something else will occur. I suspect that some of these environmental prompts are no more than a few weeks in the past. The plant's internal processes are set on a course that show results in a fairly short time. The Weather Service's measurements cover a century, or so. Averaging indicates frost, or near frost, or hard frost. This year's data hasn't yet been recorded. One of the criticisms of the WS is that, often, even this decade's data hasn't been factored in. Nevertheless, we are coming down to the greatest influence on spring warmth of all: the sun and the angle of the sunlight on our environment. The calendar is our indicator of that but I cannot ignore, the dandelion. Steve linked below are observations made over the previous decade by a community group in Minnesota. it is truly confined to place. i assume that the "first dandelion" is a recording of the first dandelion bloom, not the appearance of seed. Here is a link that might be useful: Signs of Spring: Maplewood, Minnesota