00:00We want to start off, when does the frost and freeze risk typically end, and then how does it vary across our country?
00:05In terms of the sunflower seed from your son, Ari, I guess it depends where you live, right?
00:11If you're in the parts of the northeast in Great Lakes, it can be a difficult time of year here in late April to plan.
00:16Looking at the graphic here, that shows from the eastern two-thirds of the country, basically,
00:20and we're clear, basically, in the southeast in Tennessee Valley, a lot of the plains,
00:24we're no longer dealing with sub-freezing temperatures at night.
00:27The western U.S. varies considerably depending on if you live in a mountainous area or in a valley,
00:31so it's more difficult to depict on a map, so know your local climate there in the west.
00:36But in the eastern U.S., the risk here is basically across the northern third or so of the eastern United States here for the next two to three weeks.
00:45And these are all historical averages.
00:47We know that there's some times where it's super early or super late, so can you share some of those records in some of our bigger cities?
00:53Yeah, it really depends where you live, obviously, but there's some really early last freeze.
00:56For instance, in Washington, D.C., February 27th, but the latest, there was a freeze there in late April.
01:05But you go farther west into the Ohio Valley, in some cases Detroit and Indianapolis, there can be a freeze in late May.
01:12And farther out into the western United States, Denver, Colorado, even the record latest freeze there is June 2nd.
01:18Flagstaff, Arizona, at a high elevation, even had a freeze on July 8th one year, many years ago.
01:23Wow, I love looking back at that data, just kind of fascinating, and to know that, yeah, there's quite a range.
01:29And speaking of the range, you know, if you use the Accurator app, Accurator.com,
01:31and folks are looking at kind of an hourly temperature or the overnight temperature,
01:35there can be a little bit of a vary, of course, for where the plants actually are.
01:39Yeah, certainly the case where the plants are at the ground level,
01:42and you can sometimes be five, even six, seven degrees cooler at the ground level there,
01:48and then five to ten feet above the ground level where the temperature is typically measured.
01:52So even in a case of your low temperature, it's going to be 34, 35 degrees, if that's the forecast.
01:57You can expect it to be a couple degrees cooler at ground level where the plants are.
02:00So even those cases, it's good to either bring sensitive vegetation inside or protect them overnight.
02:05That's a good tip.
02:06All right, let's go forward here as we wrap up April.
02:09And we head into May, we could be talking about some frost and freeze risks here,
02:13even as early as Thursday morning this week.
02:15Yeah, later this week, a chilly air mass.
02:17After a warm day here Tuesday, by Thursday morning, a very chilly start across the interior portions of the northeast,
02:23including the Green and White Mountains of New England, as well as the Adirondacks,
02:25are going to be a freeze and frost in those spots, pretty typical for this time of year.
02:29And if we look ahead even to the weekend, it's going to be chilly again,
02:32another blast of some chillier air as we start May,
02:35with temperatures well into the, or falling into the 20s and 30s across the interior northeast
02:39and parts of southern Canada there.
02:40So definitely still some blasts of chilly air over the next couple weeks in the northeast
02:46can cause frost and freeze.
02:48And we like to highlight our team, such a large team here, many different departments,
02:51including the long-range team.
02:53And this next graphic gives some really additional information here about what we can expect in the coming weeks.
02:59So how does our team create this long-range forecast?
03:01Yeah, so we look at a lot of different forecast models,
03:03not just the short-range models that predict the next week or so, but two, three weeks in the future.
03:08We look at the weather patterns across the globe to see how that's going to influence the weather in the United States,
03:14and there's different tools we use to do that.
03:16And we look at historical years, sort of similar years,
03:19to get that forecast out one to two months to see what may happen.
03:22And in this case, we think that this area shaded in pink
03:24is where we have a higher-than-average chance of a frost that's later than average.
03:28So in this case, mid to late May,
03:30we can still see some frost and freezes here across the northern portions of Pennsylvania
03:33through New York into New England.
03:37But the coastal east coast here from Boston down to D.C.
03:40should be in the clear here from a frost-freeze perspective after this weekend.
03:43All right, so final question.
03:44When can I plant my sunflower, Dan?
03:47I think here in central Pennsylvania, probably Mother's Day is a good weekend for planting.
03:52Oh, how beautiful.
03:53It's like they planned that on purpose.
03:55We love daycare.
03:55All right, ACCUrether, Senior Director, Forecasting of Operations, Dan DePodvin,
04:00thanks again so much for joining us.
04:01You're welcome.
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