But not too cold? How cold is too cold? It depends😀
Arctic high pressure invaded the country this week. Dangerous wind chills from the Midwest to the East coast and a record snowtorm in New Orleans, LA where they got 10 inches of snow. (That's more than we have had here all season.) Snow from Houston to the Florida panhandle. Meanwhile, here in New York and New England it was just plain cold. Nowhere near record, but flirting with -10 degrees F. where I might expect to see some damage to tender fruit (peaches) buds. How cold did it get across Massachusetts NEWA weather stations which are mostly on-farm? -17 to 16 degrees F., the former (Richmond) being in the Berkshires, the latter (Hyannis) down in the Cape Cod banana belt. See what I have to deal with?
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Now, microclimate within site I know by fact had something to do with these temperature variations. For example, I have a set (too many, OrchardWatch) of weather stations at the UMass Orchard in Belchertown, MA and the low temperature last night (this morning, Janaury 22, 2025) there varied from zero to -7 degrees, high to low elevation, with about a 200 foot vertical height difference (maybe a couple thousand feet horizontal difference). What do they say about real estate? Location, location, location?
It has been cold up to this point with no significant warm-up, so in most, if not all locations, we will have a peach crop. But check back with me in May...
