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Blog: Warming weekend ahead! Too early to garden?

Temperature Trend

As I drove home yesterday I noticed that it was very warm out. That was during the late morning. However, by the time I got home I noticed that the wind had picked up out of the northeast. I figured that was the cold front streaming in. By the afternoon the breeze was a little chilly. High temps were early in the day in the 60s and 70s. Then temps fell to the 50s as predicted. Today it’s a simpler forecast…We’re all colder!

We started this morning with temperatures in the 30s and 40s, but the wind chills were in the 20s and 30s. It’s not going to get much better today. High temps are only aiming for the mid-upper 40s this afternoon.


Forecast Temps Today

There will be a couple of 50s inland and south. A strong cold front is dropping to our south with high pressure building in from the north.

Regional Weather Map

We’ll have a northeast wind through the day. It will run at 10-15mph this morning, but it should lighten up a bit this afternoon. Tomorrow the front will lift back north as a warm front. This will happen gradually. So we’ll have quite a bit of clouds with some isolated rain showers during the day. Winds will be out of the south. So we’ll warm up to the low 60s in the afternoon. We’ll keep warming up on Sunday. High temps will rise to the mid-upper 70s.

Temperature Forecast Sunday

We’ll be partly cloudy and dry. It should be pretty nice out! We’ll warm up even more on Monday. High temps could reach 80 degrees. The record for that day is 84 set back in 1974. We’ll be partly cloudy. Then we’ll cool down towards the middle of next week.

With all of the warm temps you may be tempted to garden. There are some vegetables that you can plant this time of year like broccoli and cabbage.. However, it’s still way too early to do the bulk of your gardening. It is tempting though. Some of the cool weather grasses (fescues) are already growing. Day Lillies are popping up. Plus, trees are budding. Also, pollen has started up. It’s been hitting me for a couple of weeks already. I’d say the majority of the pollen is mold right now. Trees are starting, and weeds may be adding a little. However, grass pollen is a long way off.

Anyway, here are the dates for the average last freeze:

Average Last Freeze

There will be potential for some very cold air next weekend.

Freeze Risk

That is for the metro, and it could easily change. There will be plenty of frost or freezes in some inland locations before then. So the bottom line… feel free to start cleaning up the garden and the yard, but I’d wait to do the gardening for a little while.

Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler