Congratulations on the new baby, triciae!

Cape Cod also got a *barely* discernable sprinkle of rain today. Plenty of grey fog and a cold breeze, though! I am watering the "babies" out there now, the recently planted/transplanted trees and shrubs. The perennials and older woodies will have to fend for themselves (also the ones I can't easily reach with the hose).

Did my first spring nursery hopping today, and was pretty well able to restrain myself because the pickings are mighty slim this early in the season.

Dry as a bone and not much rain today here in my corner north of Boston. I also noticed the cracked ground--like old photos of the Dust Bowl. And many congratulations on the birth of your new grandson, Tricia!

Congrats on the new grandchild!

We received all of 0.10 inches of rain today in my little corner of the Upper Valley. The ground that has thawed is already very dry. On the north side of the house, where it is still thawing (still have ice under the farmer's porch), the ground is very soggy, but that is a transient situation. My soil is almost pure sand, so it only takes a couple of days for 'crispy lawn'. Not much of a mud season so far. Black fly season might not be too bad, either. As I understand it, the species we associate with Black Fly season around here needs lots of cold, clean running water for a good hatch. I agree that it will be interesting to see if everything averages out over the course of the year, or if I am going to have crispy lawn all summer.

On the plus side it will cut down on my mowing chores.

narcnh

Ooh, how exciting! Congratulations on the birth of your grandson!

Tricia, I was thinking of you last week while driving and listening to the radio. There was a report about how New England was due for a hurricane, and I thought of you and how you monitor the weather, as well as your concerns about water temps, etc. Let's hope that the powers that be will take whatever info they have seriously and prepare.

We didn't get any rain to speak of in my neck of the woods. Was outside watering the beds this morning, and already thinking about my well and conserving water. Time to start saving the grey water!

:)
Dee

Dee, I heard those reports also. They seemed to be mostly based on the theory of averages. Based on past hurricane patterns for the Northeast, we are due for a "big one". Although the report did mention that mid-Atlantic water temps are 6 degrees warmer than normal this year.

This week's Time magazine had a feature article on global warming as a follow-up to the one I mentioned here a few weeks ago. The new prediction, based on the quicker than anticipated melting of ice/glaciers is that the ocean's will rise by 3' by the end of the century. That's about double scientists' previous estimates.

Whether one believes the earth is experiencing a cyclical weather pattern, that the warm-up is due to man's doings, or a combination of the two...what does seem obvious is that we need to prepare for drastic changes.

With so much going on geo-politically in the world today, I doubt this issue is going to get much press...especially not from the current administration. I really believe the world needs to get much better at responding to Katrina-like events.

In the meantime, I uncovered my banana tree yesterday and found 4 pups flopped over on the ground looking a sickly yellow-green needing sunlight...so I guess they made it through the winter! Bananas in CT...They are planted across from a large stand of Black-eyed Susans and surrounded with other New England garden staples. It's going to look odd...rather like how I'd feel to see a sugar maple growing in Miami with a bouganvilla scrambling up its trunk. :)

Thanks for the "congrats" on the baby. He's such a cutie! In a couple years, I'll have another little garden helper!

I'll chime in with congratulations on the new grandbaby. :) One of the delights of spring is "lambing" -- whether actual lambs, chicks, or babies.

"The Big One" hurricane we're due for will have to get in line behind "The Big One" earthquake we're long overdue on (based on calculations from the major temblor back in the 18th century). Let's hope they don't come along at the same time. :P

Tricia, what are you using to record your weather conditions? I have a digital, wireless system from Davis and have been considering buying software to port over to my computer for long-term tracking (the Vantage Pro stores one year of data). If you are using software, I'd like to know what it is and if you like it.

Whether or not we are in a global climate pattern that is setting up for long-term warming is something that can be discussed for quite some time. But, at the micro-climate level, it isn't just about temperature. My area is classified at best as Zone 5 on the newest charts and even as a Zone 4 in some of the zip code-based on-line systems that probably still use the older algorithms. This winter the lowest temperature I recorded was -8F/-22C. The lowest I have recorded in the three winters Ive been in this house was -16F/-27C. So, at first glance it would appear that this year I experienced a Zone 6 winter instead of a Âtypical Zone 5 winter. However, we had no major winter storms and very light snow cover all winter, unlike my family in New Jersey, who were clobbered this winter as the systems swung south of us. As a result my gardens had minimal insulation from the cold and the desiccating wind. When we did get precipitation, it was most often as rain that saturated what snow there was and then froze, at times encasing some plants in solid ice that certainly didn't help matters. The past few days IÂve been inspecting my gardens (looking, so far in vain, for bulbs to start coming up, as I reported in another post) and it is a sad sight, at least in my herb beds. My lemon, French, English and silver thymes are all gone  dead branches at least back to the base. These thymes were over three feet across and stayed evergreen the past two winters. Winter savory  same. Berggarten sage, Roman chamomile, French tarragon, Greek oregano  same. My two Âhardy rosemary experiments that I tried last summer  Arp and Madeline Hill, which were up against the south side of the house and should have been in worst case Zone 6 and more likely micro Zone 5  same. Even my creeping thymes, which survived, showed damage. It is too early to tell if bronze fennel, chives, garlic chives, Egyptian onion, rue, sorrel, comfrey, all the mints and other late-emerging herbs made it. I expect they did, since they always die back. But, the ones that stay above ground took a big hit. Perhaps, at least some of them will send out new growth from the root stock; one can always hope and it is still early in the season, despite the recent warm spell. (In checking the latest weather report it looks like we are going to be back in the low 20Âs by Monday night, so IÂll have to move back inside the few over-wintered herb plants that I set out this weekend to start hardening off.) But, right now, at a minimum I have a lot of cutting back to do and maybe a lot of replanting in a few weeks.

Anyway, my point is that climate is a very complicated creature to try and figure out, especially with respect to the impact of global changes on a specific location. In my case, warmer might be worse, if it part of a pattern that shifts the winter lows south and reduces the snow cover. Conversely, as DITD mentioned in an earlier post on weather, some changes resulting from a global warming trend, like disruption of the Gulf Stream, might actually result in colder and snowier weather for most of New England, at least through our lifetimes. Personally, IÂd like a little more snow and a little more cold, first, because it is one of the reasons I moved to northern New England over a decade ago (I like a true winter) and second, because it does afford certain advantages (no termites to eat my house or woolly adelgids to eat my hemlocks). But, we shall see.

narcnh

narcnh, nope...nothing so fancy as software. :(

I've just got a Sharper Image unit that records daily highs/lows, etc. I have to run out twice/day & get the numbers. lol

I'm fascinated by weather & would love to have a fancy system that hooked into the 'puter. But, since we're buying a "new to us" boat this year...gadgets will have to wait for another time.

I cross check my readings against the Weather Channel's data just to make sure I'm not getting readings that are way off kilter....so far, I've been basically the same as their data...maybe a degree or two different some days but we're just a few feet from the water & our weather is quite different than just a half-mile inland. I wish my unit gave wind readings. It seems like the wind has been blowing for weeks at 15-25 mph...I've definitely had enough wind to last me for years.

We had a Zone 8 winter here in Mystic. The garden looks like it came through in good shape. I didn't get as much moss expansion as I'd anticipated in my moss garden though & I'm assuming that was a dryness issue. Virtually no wind damage to evergreens this year...so while it's been windy...it just wasn't very cold here.

The coldest temp I've recorded is +10 degrees back in early December. There have been a handful of scattered nights in the mid-teens. In January, eight nights we didn't even freeze. In March, twelve nights there was no freeze.

Congratulations on your new grandson! That will be a fun birthday to have.
Here the "rain" yesterday was barely a drizzle, but i have high hopes for tomorrow- could get a decent rain!
I'm not as organized about it as it seems a few of you are ;) but I am a bit of a weatherbug, and there are some interesting and active weather blogs at weather underground- a great tropical storms forum, and then some regional ones. There's usually some interesting stuff there!
Lexi

spi, thanks for the link....interesting. I'll probably keep checking it.

It looks like we had a quarter inch of rain on Saturday, on the North Shore of Mass. At least that's what the rain gauge indicates. There was a heavy shower in the afternoon, culminating in a double rainbow that lasted a half hour. What a treat.

The winter was mild for the Northeast overall, and here it was more of a Zone 8a or 7b winter than a 6b. I think narcnh is right about wanting a colder, snowier winter. If what we're seeing now is the start of a trend toward milder climate, we will see an influx of tropical diseases and pests that will affect not only gardens, but whole forests and ecosystems. And us, too, of course. I am not a fan of yellow fever and other mosquito-borne tropical illness. Mild winters mean that sub-tropical and tropical germ carriers could survive in New England.