Wow, I didn't think this was something that changed. I stayed 7a, but wow...that would change a lot of garden strategies if you were someone that religiously followed the charts.

I was in 7b now its 7a :-(

I was 6b and went to 7a. :)

Jo

I went from 7a to 7b!

Leslie

Jay, I noticed that change in your zone yesterday when I linked this map on another thread where there was a question about zones. Now, have you seen anything the last few years to make you think the zone change is valid for you?

My zone stayed the same--zone 7b. Most years we have a handful of nights that dip down colder than you'd expect for 7b---more like zone 7a, so I take it all with a grain of salt.

Ezzirah, The USDA zone map rarely changes. The last map prior to the 2012 update was issued in 1990. This new map reflects the gradual warming trend observed in many areas the last couple of decades.

Everyone, we need to remember that maps like these cover long-term averages over a broader area and you may find that your specific property gets hotter or colder than the map would lead you to expect.

Dawn

Dawn, itt seems our property become cooler, USDA downgraded from 7b to 7a. May be true? Indeed it was barren land with sparse grass until 2008, now it is full of houses with lot of trees and turf, all most all looks green from the space.

Often our temperature and rainfall range is bit vary with near by Mesonet station. I am thinking about small digital weather station in our backyard to keep record of major weather parameters such rainfall, temp, wind etc. I searched online there are hundreds of models. Do you have any suggestion for best and reliable weather station for backyard gardening to track of micro climate?

-Chandra

I am in 6B, but I think I have other issues at work such as a large body of water. I seem to hang onto warm conditions later in Fall than people just a few miles from me, but sometimes we are not so fast to warm up in Spring.

Dorothy has posted for awhile now that she has daffodils blooming and my plants are only about an inch tall. Yet I have lettuce and other salad greens growing on the south side of my house that have been there all winter (if this is winter). I have covered them a few times but not every time it was cold. I know it was 18 here while we were in Texas, and they lived through that with no cover, but they do have protection from the wind.

Zip code zones will help, but they don't tell the complete story.

Chandra,

Hopefully, Miraje (Heather) will see your question about a weather station and I am sure she will have some suggestions for one that you'd like. She and her DH have a weather station at their house.

I thought it was odd your area was reclassified a half-zone colder, but suspect maybe it always was that cold, and maybe there's been a change in how they measure the weather near you---a newer measurement station or something. Or, possibly, you're in a microclimate, as we are at our house, that is cooler than the surrounding area but it wasn't recognized as a cooler area until now.

We see a lot of weather variation just on our property. I have 4 thermometers and 2 rain gauges on various parts of our property and they never even agree with each other. Friends who live a mile north or a mile south often have significantly different rainfall or temperatures too. We have fun comparing the differences.

Carol, Y'all generally warm up before I do. I think the weather finally got my daffodils, but I have ornamental alliums and their foliage is up and they'll be flowering soon. It is early for that, but with days this month where the temps at our house hit 77 and 79, it is not surprising the plants are up, growing, and about to bloom. We have spring wildflowers in bloom already, including dandelions.

Dawn

Dawn,
I'm not sure I have noticed that much difference. First I've always paid a little more attention to the chart when planting perennials. I have went from 5b to 6b although I'm barely into the 6b zone. Used to be that Rolla, KS 14 miles east and six miles north of me was in zone 6a and I was actually in 5b by the USDA map. The other zone map is the one that had me at 6a. Never made sense. And what aggravated me is some sources I checked into ordering plants from use the USDA zone chart for all shipping. I could use a zip code just south of the state line or one from Rolla and in a few cases get my order 7-10 days earlier. I have cancelled orders because they wouldn't ship plants when I needed them. What concerns me is I know my yard, garden, soil and climate. In some cases I'm afraid some will plant perennials that will either be harmed or killed by low temps that happen every few years. Last winter we had that brief cold spell where we were below zero for 2 nights I believe. Rolla and Liberal both went below -10 which was a few degrees colder than us. I heard of some trees, ect that were harmed by that cold spell. What I've normally seen though isn't that the severe cold killed or harmed a plant but a unseasonal cold spell after plants had started coming out of dormancy. I remember a year in the late 80's just like this year where the winter was mild through Jan and plants started breaking dormancy. We got a 2-3 day cold spell in Feb that hurt some. Then around 6-7 years ago we had a spell in mid April that hit the mid teens after a mild winter and warm weather and everything had leaves, ect. It killed many plants. I have somewhat of a micro climate here. To answer your question no I haven't seen the difference of 2 designations. But I felt we were one low before and so maybe close now. Although I feel 6a maybe more representative over the last ten years. Jay

Chandra, choosing a weather station depends a lot on the accuracy that you need. The cheaper ones may not be as well calibrated or have more uncertainty in their measurements. My husband tracks our local backyard climate very meticulously with multiple rain gauges (both manual and automated), multiple temperature sensors, and all the other data we get from the weather station, so he wanted to get very accurate sensors. We ended up choosing the wireless Vantage Pro 2, which is produced by a company called Davis. It was certainly pricey (~$700 I think?), but we love it. It transmits wind, temperature, relative humidity/dewpoint, rainfall, and I think pressure data wirelessly to a receiver in our house, which then both displays the current conditions and downloads all the data to our PC. He does all kinds of long-term analysis on the data since we have it saved like that. It's been through multiple ice and hail storms and still works great. I attached the link to my husband's weather station webpage if you want to see some of the things he does with the data.

I'm amused that the new USDA map paints a little 7b circle around Blanchard. I don't really know what in our area would give us warmer temperatures than, say, Norman. Maybe I'll play it safe from now on and just say I'm in zone 7 without being specific about it. :)

Oops, forgot the link!

Here is a link that might be useful: KJSG

Case in point - Jay and I are both 6B. Now that's a joke.

Carol I agree. If you are 6b then like I stated I should be 6a probably. I never felt 5b was correct considering the areas that were in 5b at the time. And just another reason why I don't pay a lot of attention to zones. I know what I can and can't grow. And what things will need extra protection if I do grow them. But some seed and plant companies go by them strictly and can really upset me when one of their customer service people try to tell me they know more about the proper time to plant in my garden than I do. Most only make that mistake once. Jay

Strawberries I measured by the quart. Onions by the pound. Tomatoes got eaten before I could weigh them.

Jo

Jay,

It worries me too that people will get all excited about a zone reclassification and will plant perennials, shrubs or trees that might not make it in their climate. No matter what the USDA says, we have to garden with the weather we actually have at our individual locations and my experience is that our property has some 0-5 degree temps almost every year (though probably not in this warm winter we're having in 2011-2012). I don't get real excited over new zone maps, but just try to focus on the real weather we observe here.

Often I see the same cold damage you do---what we call 'late' freezes killing plants that have broken dormancy relatively early due to erratic swings from hot to cold winter and spring weather. The other kind of weather that really hurts is when we stay warm into, say, December, and the plants are just rolling right along thinking we aren't going to have winter at all. Then a cold front rolls in and the temperature drops from maybe 60 or 70 degrees one afternoon to 15 or 20 degrees that night or early the next morning. If we've been warm all along, the plants suffer a lot of cold damage from the sudden plunge. That happened one year in the mid-2000s and we lost a Banana Shrub (Michelia figo,I think) that was 4 or 5 years old and some dwarf pomegranates. They'd actually survived lower temperatures, but in those colder years they'd been exposed gradually to ever-lower-temps and had adapted to them, and in the year they froze, I think it was the sudden sharp drop in temps that got them.

Heather, That little circle around Blanchard sounds so typical of how our government does things. I cannot imagine what kind of data would convince them y'all are a half-zone warmer than the area that surrounds you on all sides. I guess y'all are in a beautiful little warm oasis! I'd probably play it safe too and think 'zone 7' and not even worry about the a or b. Even though I am in zone 7b, I plant as if in zone 7a.

Carol and Jay, While we weren't looking, did you two move closer to each other? If so, then maybe Jay will start getting some of Carol's rainfall. lol

Really, y'all, I take all the zone designations with the same grain of salt I use for average last and first freezes and frosts, average rainfall, etc. Averages look good on paper, but we don't garden on perfect average days. Instead, we garden at all extremes--from the above-average to the below-average, which in one way renders the averages rather useless except for planning purposes only.

My zone didn't even really change, but I do think the weather we've seen in recent years---specifically in the late 1990s and the 2000s are a lot different from the weather we had prior to that, and I think we're getting warmer overall.....but we still have the extreme cold blasts periodically, and they aren't going to be less severe for Jay, for example, just because a map shows his property is now in 6b instead of 5b. If they told me tomorrow that I was in 8a instead of 7b, I wouldn't change a single thing I do or how I do it. I don't say that in a mean, anti-USDA or hostile manner, but just in a practical way. I know what kind of weather I've observed here for 13 years, and a computer-generated zone map isn't going to carry more weight than first-hand experience here gained over a multitude of years.

Dawn

I agree with all of your view on micro-climate! This is my foyrth year of gardening, last three seasons were unique, every year has been different. I planted many unusual plants without knowing their requirements, some survived some not. I will track what will grow better in my conditions.

Miraje, Thanks. Vantage Pro 2 station sounds very pro. That is probably out of my budget. I look similar but economic one.

-Chandra

Chandra, Scot also has a weather station so maybe he will see this in a day or two and respond. You might find it with a search because he talked about it on another thread.

Chandra, I found the thread, but it looks like he got a really nice one also.

Here is a link that might be useful: Weather Station

Interesting. I went from 6b to 7a.

Evidently Tulsa went from 6B to 7A. I wonder if that is because of the heat held in due to the city?

We're now in 6a but only by 1/2 mile or so from what I can tell. LOL I can't find an old map to check where the lines were before but we were somewhere in the 5 zone.

Like everyone already said, it doesn't really matter for those of us in the trenches. It's gonna do what it's gonna do and the maps are only very general guidelines.

Diane

thought Id share a tid bit of history. 1 year ago today over here in Tulsa we set the record 24 hour snow fall of 14" and the record low was set a few days later. Today its supposed to be close to 70. bring on the global warming, LOL.

Mike

I have bought "Ambient Weather WS-2080 Wireless Home Weather Station" after reading lot of good reviews about it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ambient Weather WS-2080 Wireless Home Weather Station

Chandra, you sure got a good price and I am really tempted. The mesonet and the airport both give us some weather reporting here, but I am closer to the water than either of those locations and they aren't always accurate for me. I have a friend that lives less than a mile from the Mesonet station and her garden froze three weeks before mine did last season.

Carol,
I too had similar experience with two mesonet stations few block each side, our property weather pattern usually not matches with mesonet readings. Our property located on little higher ground than those with some slope. I guess those making variable are crating differences. That temped me to start logging my own weather data to establish deviation line to identify flux of the micro-climate. I am glad to find cheaper version which do same job as of pro at 1/10 of its price. I will let you know when I unpack and setup it this weekend. -Chandra

That looks like a great weather station! It will be interesting to see how much variability there is just across a few city blocks. A higher elevation will probably suggest that you'll see warmer nighttime temperatures on average for sure.

As far as rainfall goes, I've read studies that put up to 15 research quality rain gauges right next to each other and they still had wildly different measurements. The deviations you see from your neighbors should probably be random with zero bias. If there is always a bias in one direction (higher or lower), then it might be related to what type of rain gauge you have. Automatic rain gauges, even calibrated ones, tend to underestimate rainfall accumulations particularly for heavy rain. Even with our Davis station, my husband has to increase the rainfall anywhere from 10-25% to match what we get in our manual gauges. I'm not sure what corrections the Oklahoma Mesonet folks make to their stations' rainfall totals. Anyway, the underestimation is a typical problem related to how most automated gauges are designed and is easy enough to account for when you're comparing your data to other stations. If they always seem to have higher amounts, then they either have a different type of gauge or have a COCORAHS or other manual gauge that they're adjusting to. With as many weather weenies that we have in Norman, that wouldn't surprise me at all. :p

Heather

I read that it was a necessity to have everything perfectly level for the rain gauge to give accurate results, and that this station might need a better shield to keep the thermometer in the shade.

My DH said I probably should order one this morning, but I didn't. It isn't that I need one, be I do become quite the weather watcher during the growing season.

I don't normally watch the weather much, but just for the heck of it, I set the thermometer into the soil this afternoon. I came in and checked the temp just after sun-down at 49 and now it is 46. I don't normally check soil temp till much later in the year. I will leave it out in the garden a day or two and then bring it in because it will be a good while before I plant anything.

Larry

Yes, the gauge should be as level as possible. The tipping bucket mechanism inside relies on the water to fall or drip vertically onto it for it to work correctly, and if the water is dripping in at an angle the bucket may not fill and empty like it is supposed to. Some gauges allow you to adjust the position of the bucket inside to compensate for that to a point. Even for manual gauges, though, any off-level tilt can affect the rain amounts you get depending on which way the wind is blowing the rain over the gauge.

Dawn, I have to echo your concern. I looked up my new zone and thought, "No way!" Every year, since we've moved here, except this year, and perhaps 2005/2006 we've had temperatures WAY colder than what my new zone indicates. I mean A LOT colder.

George

USDA - Hmmm, isn't that the government, you know the same ones that really want you to be concerned about man made global warming? Just asking.

Here is picture of my new weather station "Ambient Weather WS-2080 Wireless Home Weather Station"

-Chandra