We should hit 70 that day. Most stuff hasn't had enough chilling yet to be too adversely affected.

Not 70F but 50F seems very likely now. Definitely no white Christmas this year.

Not anxious yet. In the UK, December and November are frequently mild - real cold doesn't begin to arrive until late January/February and March can be a chiller. However, no denying that narcissi in December are seriously weird.

presuming your stock is in dormancy ... they will not come out of dormancy.. until the soil warms enough.. to trigger the roots... to trigger the sap .... to trigger the buds ...

so IMHO .. its more dependent on soil temps.. rather than a few errant days of warm air temps ...

ken

Knoxville is predicted to be 70F on Christmas.

Weather in my area seems to get weirder every year, and I am seeing more and more plants unable to adapt to the late freezes, etc.

This is actually really worrisome to me. I hope it cools back down soon. One of the worst features of our North American climate are these crazy swings in winter and spring weather...wakes everything up, then kills it. If you look at record winter highs for various European or Asian cities, you see that this just doesn't happen elsewhere to the extent it does here. Kunming's January record is only 12F higher than the average, DC's is 35F!

Not just the record standard deviations above normal on a few days..., it's been the DURATION of the warmth (starting with September!). And I do remember that either last year (or the year before) we were around 70 as well (and then the multiple polar vortices brought record cold and snow). As erratic as temps have been, so has been the precip! Rainfall deficits here are approach one foot for the year. I know astronomical winter has not officially begun (meteorological one has though); still, it seems that we get a lot more sunny winter days than in the past. And when it does decide to rain..., it REALLY rains hard.

P.S., David, I think our Eastern, North American climate is a mixed blessing. Asian climates at middle latitudes are MUCH less variable than here; but they also offer MUCH less winter precipitation (in fact, they feature winter aridity). I had a Chinese friend tell me that if you her the calendar date, she could tell you the weather in Beijing. Here the presence of the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream (for the East Coast), can bring tropical influences even in mid-winter, but ARCTIC air masses are occasionally able to sink into Florida. Does make it interesting.

" but they also offer MUCH less winter precipitation (in fact, they feature winter aridity)'

True but the interesting thing is you can look for weather statistics across Southern Asia...from Srinagar clear over to Shanghai*...and even in places where the January avg. rainfall is scary low sounding - .75 inches in some parts of SW China...the landscape is surprisingly lush looking for the most part. Nothing at all like parts of our southern plains like w/similar winter rainfall amounts! It does start to get arid once you really go into the colder interior of China, the places that are zn 7 or lower. But generally there's just less that can go wrong with the dry season being winter, in terms of sustaining plants like BLEs. I admit it does kinda amaze me that in places where the monsoon season is really brief, plants like Rhododendron arboreum can germinate, grow and harden off before it gets dry again. Because rhododendron seedlings seem so damn hard to keep alive - for me at least. I wonder if pioneer plants left enough organic duff to make the soils more moisture retentive than what you'd expect of the Himalayas: rock.

* I specific cite these 2 cities because they don't have particularly dry winters but surround the edges of the wet summer/dry winter zone.

There's lower evaporation rates when it's cold and those rhodies are on wet draining slopes.

Mike

I wish the politicians would get the message that global warming is here and they should pass some legislation to help deal with this crisis.

Now calling for 70 to 75 on Christmas Eve (with high dew points).

Looks like it will be around 60 here in Central Maine.

Kingdon-Ward walked through dead rhododendrons for days on one trip because there had been a summer drought. The current Rhododendron Species Foundation and Botanical Garden journal mentions signs of hard spring frost in a Chinese trip report.

Yeah the Indian Met. Office published a map every year of monsoon rain and there's some variation every year to the pattern. But obviously it never goes entirely missing or, well, the Himalayas would look like the high plains at a 40 degree angle. (which the Tibetan plateau somewhat does once you get beyond the Himalayas and most of the moisture has been wrought for the clouds. Lhasa's average rainfall is only around 16 inches.)

Also I wonder if the ones KW saw were really dead or just had their tops senesce as a survival technique.

"The current Rhododendron Species Foundation and Botanical Garden journal
mentions signs of hard spring frost in a Chinese trip report."

Maybe the effect of climate change LOL.

Also I wonder if

No, the monsoon didn't come to that area and there was a mass die off.

"No, the monsoon didn't come to that area and there was a mass die off."

You were there? Gosh, you're older than I thought LOL. I don't see how KW could completely evaluate the plants unless he stayed in an area for a long while. I had a Cycas panzi-whatever-ensis play dead for TWO* full years! Maybe this is something S Asian plants can do.

In any case, yes, there can be freak weather events anywhere. Obviously, late freezes and rain-free summers are extremely rare in the monsoon areas of India and S & SW China, because plants from those areas generally are less tolerant of such conditions than (most) plants from North America. (and as is evidenced by climate statistics anyhow.)

* - and an Asian cycad in Orlando came back from the dead after something like 10 years.

But would be curious where you found the KW story. Tales of the Rose Tree? I have it but haven't gotten around to reading it.

Here is the latest seasonal map:

30% deficient is actually pretty bad sounding...but I doubt the Rhododendron arboreums in that area are dying off by the millions. Nevertheless one supposes that every 50 to 100 years some areas do have that happen. I've looked at this map on and off for several years btw. I wonder if the pattern works like our eastern USA droughts sometimes do, where it seems "drought begets drought". So a small variation in where the monsoon really takes off means the rest of the season follows that pattern.

Amazingly, there were 70F temps as far north as eastern Canada.

Records smashed on East Coast’s warmest ever Christmas Eve - The Washington Post

We got the air on. I don't ever recall using the air on Christmas. High was 73 F, but the dew point is in the mid 60's and with holiday baking, it feels almost muggy outside. It was 70 here before sunrise!

80.5* presently in SE Texas, it's still fairly early in the afternoon so I expect we'll top out around 82 unless it starts raining (which is expected sometime today. Tomorrow should be the same, but a drop off the cliff in temps is expected Sunday night, down to 42 and a high Mon. of only 54. It's going to feel colder than that after this unusual warmth (even for here), the poor plants and trees are so confused!

Just did a quick survey outside. Flower buds on Magnolia 'Tina Durio' are definitely swelling. Not good. However I won't mind losing the spring flower display as long as I don't lose the plant. Generally, winters here are more stably cold than a typical location in the mid-Atlantic but there just isn't enough cold water in the Bay to overcome this airmass. Even the eastern tip of Long Island is close to 60F. (tho 66F at Montauk?!)

Yesterday was 62 here across the state from Chicago and 60 miles south along the Mississippi River. I was planting seeds in a raised bed really enjoying late December.

Dax

I was sure you checking out interest starting a forum for gardeners over 70 years old..

Didn't get 70F here, but mid-60s yesterday. Wonderful weather. I do remember a Christmas around 1965 or so when it was near 70F & rainy. The most extraordinary warm winter temps I remember was 1974 when it was near 80F for 2 days at the end of Jan (we were in shorts!). Roanoke, VA, has a record high 87F in late Jan 1930.

Long-range forecast shows a polar vortex developing and moving south over James Bay, Canada by early January. So we here in the mid to east US don't have long to wait for some cold temps.

I certainly don't look forward to it -- it could eventually spawn a significant winter storm.

Edit: An overview of N hemisphere "weather" is shown at the below link. The darkest line is the rough edge of "polar" air. Run thru the animation one frame at a time to see the progression from past to future. The overall pattern in N America at start of January suddenly changes from cold-west, mild-east to mild-west, cold-east.

http://wxmaps.org/pix/NHanim.html

84.6 degrees on Christmas day in Houston, but blizzard conditions on the way for west Texas and southern Rockies - it's psycholand in the weather world lately, folks.

Feels like spring out there. Ground hasn't actually cooled enough for the tropical plants to stop growing. The bananas have grown a foot in the past few days. It better get cold soon or else the daffodils will bloom.

Just spent a couple of hours pottering about outside leaf sweeping and cutting back some scruffy stuff. We've had consistent high 50s day and night here for weeks now. Several daffodils have actually finished now - eaten by slugs.

It reached mid-60's on Christmas eve which broke a record, and it was approx. 63F on Christmas day here in metrowest Boston. Today was cooler but still extremely pleasant for late December, 50-ish with muted sunlight and zero wind. The sky was soft blue with a few white puffs of clouds and the neighborhood was mostly quiet. Beautiful!

I am still transplanting stuff into the mixed privacy borders on both sides of the back yard. Have decided to push the envelope this "winter" and keep going until the ground has a good layer of frost, which hasn't even remotely happened yet. Just in case I am watering and mulching these plants abundantly.

.Moved 2 8 foot tall Cornus racemosa today. When I originally planted these 5 years ago, they were little and cute, but now they are 8 feet tall and 5 feet wide and out grew their positions. Tomorrow, I'm going to cut down some Buckthorn that's still remains way in back (Rhamnus cathartica), and perhaps transplant some Bayberry (Myrica pennsylvanica) in its place.

Its interesting to look at the wundermap and see the little Appalachian mountain chain trying to hold back the warm air; that tiniest of cold fronts we got yesterday is already being pushed out. People call this the "wedge". That 68F in SW PA is at an elevation of 2000 ft., the 48F not far away is at 1000 ft. Supposed to be around 70F today throughout the mid-Atlantic; higher further south of course.

Interesting Dave. The fairly common "cold wedge" from N/NE winds actually enhances rain here in the ridge/valley area as it fills in the valleys w/cold air to ridge altitudes and then acts like a huge, uniform orthographic feature lifting warmer SW rain/snow over the entire ridge/valley region instead of just on the ridge-slopes themselves. Often the cold wedge gives us (in the valleys) the heaviest cold-season rain/snow events and the precip amounts will be roughly the same from highest ridge-top to lowest valley bottom.

The autumn-flowering cherries here, which usually just spit out a handful of flowers in fall, and maybe in winter warm spells, are blooming more heavily as they would in spring.

There probably won't be much of a bloom in spring for them at this point. A flowering quince was also blooming.

I did see a few Acer rubrums with a few opening buds. Not native ones, but mostly those I think are 'October Glory' - I think they have a lower chilling requirement than some other cultivars do.

It does appear that the forecast will stay colder - nothing earth-shatteringly cold, but normal or a tad below, and definitely cold enough to halt growth. Maybe a couple days with highs close to freezing next week, but mostly 40s highs and 20s lows.

It's stil El Nino, but it appears the ridiculous warmth is over with for the forseeable future.

I'm still expecting we will get caught off-guard by a huge February snowstorm.

Funny I hadn't even noticed but as of New Year's Day, my Prunus mume 'Peggy Clarke' was almost in full bloom! Of course I guess the flowers will now be dying last night and tonight as it should be dropping into the teens. Too bad.

We're approximately one hundred miles from the Canadian border, and we had a 70 degree day on or around Christmas day and no snow. Now we have a one inch covering of snow and tonight is very cold (single digits) but expected to rise into the 30s or 40s tomorrow. I think this warm weather must have set records.