Sumer is icumen in . . .

Now is the Month of May!

Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna

Yes, these pics were taken today. Yes, 27 December. Yes, 55°N latitude. No, not the southern hemisphere.

What is going on????

Resin


This message was edited Dec 27, 2015 9:31 PM

have been having the same issues here - golfing in shorts today and on christmas eve day - nuts.

I wish I had a good explanation for this freakishly warm weather we've experienced. Up until this past week, we've been consistently 20F or more above average temps. We did have a white Christmas, as 1.3" of snow fell on December 23, which is the only measureable snow we've had this fall/winter. More snow is predicted for this evening and into tomorrow.

I don't know it it's a record, but a very unusual amount of rain has fallen in December. About a week ago we had an all day gentle rain that felt like late April. If we had been anywhere near normal temps, we'd have close to 3' of snow on the ground.

People have been getting antsy to resume normal winter activities around here, including two men who drowned after they fell through thin ice yesterday afternoon trying to do some ice fishing. It doesn't take a genius to understand it has been way too warm for such activities, and these two unfortunate souls are likely to be nominated for a Darwin Award. There was visible open water and residents living along the lake had tried to talk them from going out.

We had 11.5 inches of rain in the past 3d according to my (admittedly amateur) rain gauge. Then throw in the disastrous flooding in N of England - it's a wild world out there!

Should add though, most of the flooding here is a man-made disaster, due to greed and corruption on the grouse-shooting moors - massive illegal upland land drainage creating very fast run-off, and flood protection policies favouring agricultural land over towns; all done with tacit connivance of the current party in power. A really disgusting situation. Oh, and also greedy housing companies building houses in known high flood risk areas. Read about it here, by investigative journalist George Monbiot:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/29/deluge-farmers-flood-grouse-moor-drain-land

Resin

Greed and corruption? I'm sure glad we don't have anything like that in the states. ;)

"When heavy rain falls, some land must flood. We have a choice: fields or cities. And all over Britain, we have chosen badly."

Resin, I had no idea the flooding was that bad. I can understand why people would be angry with decisions that led to a situation where disaster was predicted because of land misuse. Anger is sometimes cloaked in ignorance and bigotry, but this seems like a situation where it is very much warranted. I hope it results in constructive change.

I hope so too, but I doubt that it will – the billionaire landowners who are doing this are close friends with government ministers; any law they want changed, gets done.

Resin

We're still sweating out the cresting of rivers here in St Louis, hopefully cresting today. The New Year's Eve party we had planned to attend had to be cancelled because the hosts live between two interstates which are both closed by flooding so no way to get to their house. The silver lining is that I was able to be in bed by 9.

Does this type of severe flooding kill many trees?

The ones that get undermined, uprooted and washed away, yes! Otherwise - a lot of the trees that grow on floodplains (e.g. poplars, willows, tupelos, baldcypress, etc) are adapted to cope with inundation so are OK. Can be different where people plant trees that are not adapted, then can be 'drowned' of course.

Resin

They are claiming an El Nino on our western coasts- but guys? I remember warm weather until Jan and sometimes until Spring even in Oklahoma when I was a teenager- 1960's late...Texas gets fall blooms on many trees thru Dec but then a cold snap will inevitably blow thru. I did see a few campsites on ice in N Dakota, this past 2wks. Wis was nowhere cold enuff for that! I am glad to be in Tx after those 2*/7* mornings in Twin Falls, Idaho and Towaoc, Colo- the stagnant air made the journey quicker than many other winters.

I always plant a few winter blooming plants to encourage me through winter that spring is coming. It's always hit or miss, depending on weather. Here are a few from my yard today.
#1 is prunus mume. I have several, each is budded up pretty ready to pop, but only a few blooms so far.
#2 is chaenomeles japonica var alpina. Blooms mostly in spring, but will crank out some blooms in response to a few warm days in fall or winter, too.
#3 is jasminum nudiflorum. As above, it blooms mainly in spring, but frequently puts out a few blooms during brief warm spells in winter.
#4 is cheating, it's a daphne (D. odora MaeJima) which overwinters in my garage. Makes the garage smell awfully nice.
So, you can see spring is on the way!

Hmmm... I can't figure out how to post pictures since the new version of DG appeared. Maybe only with a new thread? I'll see if that works...

I couldn't add photo's to my note above, I suspect due to needing a newer browser. I switched to a different computer and looks like it will work. So here are the pictures for the post above.