Another Cold Night

Friday was another cold grey winter’s day. We've had a few of them just recently and they’ve put any gardening activities on hold.

Overnight into Saturday the sky cleared producing another severe frost with the temperature down to -5.9°C (21.4°F) yet a further lowering of this winter’s coldest night. At least Saturday has dawned bright and clear but still well below zero. The pond had somehow managed to lose its covering of ice despite the temperature hardly rising above 0°C for the last couple of days, but it’s now frozen over once again.

Our snowdrops still remain frozen in time, just waiting for a rise in temperature before coming into flower. They’re now going to be later into flower this year than last so the mild start to winter certainly hasn't brought our snowdrops into early flowering mode.

Winter this year is the opposite way round to last year in that we started off mild in December and the first part of January and then the cold spell kicked in. Last year December was very cold with a milder January and February. Unless February remains very cold it looks like this winter will be milder than last year but may well turn out to be on the cold side of what we might expect. The chart below is updated to 10th February. 

Click to view full size image

Just where will this year’s brown trace finish. Moving towards the yellow line moves closer to an average winter but temperatures will need to warm up for this to happen or will it continue in its relentless downward trend towards last year’s winter value.

In the meantime whilst the weather remains this cold my seeds are staying cosy in their packets waiting for some milder weather.