Sorry to hear about the losses. Maybe the silver lining is that you can focus on catching up on other work in the orchard. This year has been chaotic weather wise. Here in California we are in a drought now, only 80% of normal. It was in the 70's and 80's right until the end of February, and if it hadn't been for our miracle March, we'd be at 20% of normal. Of course the massive rains throughout March and April has been tough on the orchard here. The only reason I have any fruit is because I went out and sprayed in between rain storms to fight off the brown rot from destroying our entire stone fruit crop. Well, according to Wunderground, 4 out of the 5 most recent catastrophic freezes were in California. This last one fell on the midwest. The great California freeze of 1990 was the worst we ever saw, even California native trees died back then. The damage to crops was enormous, and it wasn't just some lost blossoms, we're talking about dead trees. Dead citrus and avocado orchards up and down the state. Imagine driving down the streets of California seeing decapitated palms and burned eucalyptus. So it's all relative. You just have to sit out one season.

The reliable weather sources here in our region hedged from the moment the models started showing the Arctic cold front, and said repeatedly that the wintery precip was very unlikely to make it this far south. Even when the NWS forecast had us at a 20-30% chance of precip, and likely wintery precip at that, our temperatures still were going to be barely at or below freezing, so I felt like we would be okay down here. Incredibly, we still have patches of sleet here that haven't completely melted from the last storm, although they are shrinking in size every day and now remain only in really shady areas. I hope we have reasonably decent weather for the rest of the month so everyone can just enjoy the holidays and stay safe. Scott, I do think our local electric co-op was concerned about the prospects for another ice storm at the end of the week. Their employees or sub-contractors were out in our neighborhood yesterday,clearing areas beneath and beside power lines where anything was growing that could be a threat to the power lines if icing occurred. Ever since either Sat or Sun, our local forecast has trended warmer and warmer, so I haven't been too worried. I agree that the models do an amazing job of predicting the general trends. Just look at how often they can warn us 6-10 days out that a tornado outbreak is likely in a specific area on a specific day or days, and indeed, somewhere in the area they've highlighted, tornadoes generally do occur on those days. I think it is particularly helpful that they can issue PDS advisories days in advance when the models indicate a Particularly Dangerous Situation could develop. We are nice and warm down here, Scott. While the nights may be cooler than we'd like, our highs this week are in the 60s and may hit the 70s for a day or two. I'm guessing y'all must not be quite as warm there as we are here. Unfortunately, with warmer air temps in winter and lots of dormant and somewhat dry vegetation, our winter fire season may be starting early. We had a relatively small grass fire (maybe a half-acre) Sunday, another one yesterday that threatened a barn and vehicles before firefighters arrived on the scene and extinguished the blaze quickly, and 4 more grass fires overnight. With some windy days this week, we're likely to have more little fires. I think we are too wet overall for them to get big and move quickly.....and hope I am right about that. After the two rain/ice/sleet/snow storms we've had in the last few weeks, the ground is so muddy that firefighting brush trucks are getting stuck in the mud at some of the fires we've been having. Normally the bad part of the winter wildfire season doesn't start until February or March. I'm hoping for a quiet winter, both in terms of weather and wildfire.

My cabbage seedlings look great! They spent about 2 weeks in an unheated garage, under a window. I put them back outside after the snow melted and they never blinked, so to speak. They are showing some true leaves, so I need to transplant them, soon. In the future, if I am winter-sowing and the temperatures are predicted to drop to severely cold levels, I will put my seedlings in a protected area as I did this season.

Bob, I'm originally from the lowcountry in SC and get back there regularly. They've got citrus greening (and quarantine) along the coastline. I think where I'm at just outside Washington DC gets almost as bad with mosquito swarms, heat, and humidity. The plus side of being in Virginia is there is a 20% chance of having 4 seasons (eg. seeing snow) which I love and I have the Shenandoah mountains an hours drive which is pretty nice. I'm definitely looking at getting away from the urban area though.