Acuweather forcast Thursday night 32, Friday night 31, Saturday night 36/National weather service is saying 42, 34 and 34 for those nights with a wintery mix on Thursday night. They are saying that parts of the upper valley may get into the 20's. There are two fronts colliding right over us.
Here is what the National weather service says for Brownsville:
A VERY STRONG COLD FRONT WILL MOVE THROUGH DEEP SOUTH TEXAS ON
WEDNESDAY. IN THE WAKE OF THIS FRONT...A COLD CANADIAN AIRMASS
WILL MOVE INTO THE AREA DRASTICALLY REDUCING TEMPERATURES FOR THE
LATTER HALF OF THE WEEK. BY EARLY THURSDAY MORNING...OVERNIGHT LOWS
AROUND DEEP SOUTH TEXAS WILL FALL INTO THE UPPER 30S. THE POTENTIAL
FOR FREEZING TEMPERATURES WILL INCREASE FOR THURSDAY NIGHT WITH THE
MERCURY FALLING INTO THE LOWER TO MIDDLE 30S BY FRIDAY MORNING.
THE POTENTIAL FOR NEAR FREEZING TEMPERATURES WILL CONTINUE INTO
SATURDAY MORNING.
IN ADDITION TO THE FREEZING TEMPERATURES...THERE WILL BE THE
POTENTIAL FOR A MIXTURE OF WINTRY PRECIPITATION LATE THURSDAY
NIGHT AND EARLY FRIDAY MORNING. HOWEVER...THE OVERALL PRECIPITATION
TYPE SHOULD BE RAIN AND SIGNIFICANT ACCUMULATIONS OF FROZEN
PRECIPITATION ARE NOT EXPECTED ON FRIDAY.
Do you think it will help if I wrap my banana blooms/fruit and other tender tropicals with blankets? I have some stuff if 25 gallon planters. Should I fill the garage with the pots or try to cover them? This is not supposed to happen down here! It was so nice today, perfect weather!
Oh my, this is not supposed to happen here!
wrap everything not moveable with sheets or blankets. Move what you can. I did not three years ago and regretted it. It took two years for some of my more tender palms to start growing again and some of the most tender died out right. George in San Antonio.
P.S. some Cycads are also not cold hardy so if you have D.Spinosium or the like cover them or move them indoors
The only other cycad I have besides the sago is zamia furfuracea/cardboard palm. I'll wrap what I can with sheets. I was thinking about putting a pillow case around my clusters of bananas. The potted stuff I'm moving to the screened porch and garage.
oh yeah, my cardboard palm which I love got that coppery burn to it, and it was covered last week. My plants are gonna die!, my plants are gonna die! Just when they were looking like something. GRRR. I want to move to z11
My hardy banana is too big to wrap so it gets zapped every year, but always comes back...in fact it is a nuisance and I'd like to take it out (the fruit is too small to use). It looks really bad right now from the hard freeze we had but I know it is far from finished. I didn't get all of the tangerines and lemons harvested, but I pulled a tangerine from the tree yesterday and ate it...really good! Mid-twenties temp seems to have sweetened them.
Ma Nature is not being kind this year. The hurricanes in Florida, floods in California and pests in Mexico have devastated the produce supplies. Texas and Arizona growers had hoped to help out, but not likely to happen with these arctic blasts.
It's 80 degrees right now, so hard to believe that it's going to be so cold tomorrow night. The citrus growers were hoping for a great crop this winter. I think they're either dragging out the smudge pots or picking what they can today.
make sure to cover the cardboard palm. They can not take a freeze.
Oh no, another thing to cover!
From what I can see, its on its way. Good luck Cala! I hope everything makes it from here to there and back again...
local weatherman QUOTE: LET IT SNOW!!! Snow flurries are a good possibility over the Texas Hill Country and a slight chance in San Antonio overnight Thursday--Friday morning. Expect COLD air to pour in behind a front that moves through this evening. And with that cold air in place, an upper level low slides out of the west and delivers the moisture we'll need for snow flurries. Hope you have a great evening--- Bill Taylor
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
the preceding message was a political advertisement paid for by the committee to bring year round tropical weather to San Antonio and more specifically George's house.
Depending on which station we listen to, it's going to be 25-27 Thursday night.
Snow has already arrived here! This was taken at 9 am today!! Yuck is all I can say!
Got my delicate bits wrapped up just in time yesterday. The garden center was just about out of frost wrap when I left. LOL in the hope this is just a joke and I'll see the funny side soon.
Carol
Nooooooooooooo! no snow! Ack, they are stripping the citrus trees as I type. It's 75 right now, beautiful. Hard to believe it's going to freeze.
Collinsville too, Susie................just a few minutes ago.
"eyes"
Oh my...DH's sons live in Van Alstyne. Bet they have it too. Pretty to look at, but one of the main reasons I live here, is so that I don't have to deal with it anymore...
Van Alstyne got it too................we're still getting it.
"eyes"
Sounds like a White Christmas...
Calalily... did you forget to leave the cold weather behind when you packed up and moved to Texas?? LOL
Here's some of what I've done, hope it helps some of you guys out.
Water everything very well , soak it wet.
Covering it with Blankets & Sheets will help.
Move what you can into the garage.
Cardboard boxes with newspaper stuffed in and round the rootball helps somethings.
Then really tall stuff you can wrap with a sheet first, then a large tarp... if you can keep the frost off the growth tips and root balls, most stuff will make a slow comeback.
I use clothes pins to achor stuff and then it's easy to unwrap when it heats back up.
Most of my tropicals have weathered pretty well, with minor damage, if it doesn't freeze for more than 3 hours straight.
Gosh I HATE winter!
Stay warm folks,
MsC
Lottie has just about covered all we can do folks..........when we run out of greenhouse, garage, and house space then the rest is on it's own. If you have a way to put a light bulb under really tender stuff that is another option but some don't have a way to do that for all the tender plants they have I know I don't.
If you can follow her instructions as best you can most will survive.This if not something we have to deal with often thank goodness but I guess this year we do. I just hope this will be short lived.
Dee
Wow, we have a lot of snow tonight! Too bad it will probably be gone by Christmas day.
It's hitting here, gone from 80 to 48 so far with winds up to 25 mph. I've moved in the potted stuff, the other will have to wait till tomorrow to get wrapped up. I ran out of daylight.
Our high today has bee 36. MY GH got down to 48 last night... Tomorrow the high is to be 30! UGH!!! I sure don't like this!!!!!!!
We have had light snow flurries off and on all day and it has been hailing the past hour or so off and on...the bird bath even had ice in it that lasted all day.
BRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!! It is COLD outside.
Funny enough my Angel's Trumpets still had blooms on them and a few hibiscus were even blooming..lol
Maybe they were just frooze in place????
Merry Christmas everyone!
MsC
We got sleet this afternoon and now its snowing ! WOW !! Thats not something we see in South Texas very often, last time it snowed was in 1972...
Holding steady again at 30*F with sleet. Everything is coated with a thin layer of ice, the banana fronds are breaking in the wind. I had forgotten to cover a hibiscus, it's leaves and flowers were frozen solid and broke when I touched them. It's not been this cold here since 1989.
I just came in again from outside checking on stuff with the flashlight and it's "Snowing" big flakes......WOW.......almost forgot where I was.........LOL This is so weird this just dosn't happen in South Texas.
Yes the Blooms on my brugs are frozen solid the ones that are still standing that is. Most are on the ground, just to tall to carry the extra weight of the ice........Oh well guess I will start over next year.
Merry Christmas all and You be carefull if you will be driving anywhere. Take care and know my thoughts and prayers are with you one and all.
hugs and kisses to you all across the miles
Dee
We got 4 inches of snow ! thats a record for south texas last time it snowed in 72 it was less than 1 inch ! My 23 yr old daughter had never seen snow she is having a ball...my oldest (38 yr ol) has seen snow when we lived in Chicago and she now lives in dalls so she gets to see some every once in a while. My plants have bit the dust , I think I have lost them all. :0( wont know till its cleared up as to what will make and what wont.My canna collection (150 different named cannas) looks bad...
This message was edited Dec 25, 2004 10:30 AM
No snow here...a few people with vivid imaginations thought they saw flurries, but even though the meteorologists say it was snowing aloft it evaporated before reaching the ground. Very dry...wish I done more watering before the frigid temps arrived. Your cannas - most of them - will come back, emh48. Mine do every year, though they clearly aren't happy about winter. When I looked out this morning I saw that the Dutch iris have sent up the first shoots...as if to announce that spring is coming.
We got 2 inches of snow. At 4:30 am it was 26 degrees. This is the first time it's snowed(with accumilation) in Cameron county in over a hundred years! My neighbors were all out at the crack of dawn, some had never seen snow.
My plants are frozen solid, will have to wait for it to thaw out to see how many I lost.
My kids wanted snow. Dad and his plants did not. I am happy the ice stayed away from my yard. I really don't expect to have lost anything in this freeze. Only time will tell. George in San Antonio
Doncha just hate it when the kids somehow get everything they wanted for Christams, even against YOUR wishes LOL.
Hope your plants make it.
Your kids will remember this Chirstmas forever :-)
All the snow is gone today finally and this is my first full day off . I have just finished survaying the damage from the past few nights of snow and freezing temps.
So far the brugs, gingers,bananas, castors, EE's and Hibiscus I couldn't move are the only casulties. I am sure most will come back in the spring but will just have to wait and see. I have spent the morning cutting everything back to the good wood and will see if I need to go further later.The Hibiscus was mulched pretty good and had some cover from overhanging tree limbs and seemed to have weathered this pretty well. The tips of the branches and some of the limbs were damaged but the bushes as a whole look pretty good so far.
As for brugs we they feel spongy to the base so I don't think they have any good wood on them and I hope they may come back from the root. The outter bark just slips off when you run your hand over it so I don't think that is a good sign either..........LoL.........sure am glad I took some cuttings.............
But never the less I won't dispare, I loved the snow and I do have lots of cuttings. I feel can start anew in the spring and nothing can compare to this memory right now, because in my 56 years nothing like this has ever happen here that I know of and probably never will again in my life time. So I am blessed to have been here and seen and enjoyed it just this once. I will have my flowers again in the spring and for many more springs to come so there is nothing to dispare. I really feel almost like I was given a gift.
Dee 80)
Dee, the brugs used to freeze to the ground in TN and stay frozen and a lot of them would come back, so yours should be okay.
After two days of warm weather the damage is showing up, leaves are turning brown or black and getting crispy. I see I have more stuff to trim. The things I mulched with straw did pretty good, the ones I wrapped first with newspaper then covered with cloth did the best. It was 73 today, can you believe that!
Calla ,
I believe it. Next week it is supposed to be 78!
I saw your pics and you had more snow than I would have ever imagined.
I haven't trimmed anything back yet... I still get weak just looking at all the frost bitten damage.
Most of the brugs I have in the ground always come back, except for the very tips.
So I'm hoping for the best.
Did your nanners freeze???
MsC
So far nothing appears damaged. I have some high hopes that we have weathered the storm without loosing any plants. I was worried over a 3 year old fishtail palm I had foolishly put in the ground but even it appears ok. I will be digging her up and putting in a pot. This is no place for a fishtail palm to winter outside. My enthusiasm, at times, trumps reason and I put things in the ground that can not possible survive here.
George in San Antonio
MsC, most of the nanas that I wrapped are okay, but there were a lot that were either too big to wrap or I ran out of time and sheets. The Abyssinian leaves were mush, but the stem is still firm. The big nanas with bunches on them have brown leaves but the stems are still good. I had put Christmas lights on them, saved the nana bunches but not the leaves.
Jester, I know what you mean. I planted two foxtail palms and one triangle palm and they look pretty bad. The palm tree guy said it will take a while to see what survived, but he said if the center is still green they should be okay. He moved all his fancy potted palms into a shelter but had no heat in there. He said he had a lot of brown leaves. His foxtails that were too big to move inside fared better than mine.
Calalily I lost four foxtails to a freeze 2 years ago. Never had the heart to grow more. I have switched to Queen Palms and they have no problem with a freeze.
I had to edit as I spelt years as tears lol I wonder what I was thinking.
This message was edited Dec 28, 2004 3:21 PM