first snow...

Wow! That's a lot of snow.

love your greenhouse with the snow on top...:-)

Thanks Sandra!....I wish I could send Delonix some of it...in the liquid form!

Lori:

Yes, we could really use the water. It's been so hot this whole week you would think it's the middle of summer. I can't remember such a hot winter in the 14 years I've lived in San Diego. It's crazy!

It's snowing again! and tonight our temps are supposed to go a little bit above freezing..and with precip that means either freezing rain, sleet or wet snow! arggghhhh!

Looking at this really makes me appreciate our weather. My first Iris bloomed this month!!

Lori:

Has it started warming up a little bit? It's almost spring.

We're still having warm to hot, dry weather here in inland San Diego.

Hello Gardengnome! so nice to hear from you again!
Argghhhh....I want spring so badly but it is very cold here and spring, although the calendar says it's right around the corner, is taking a very long time to appear. It's going down to minus 20 something tonight...our days are around minus 5 to zero(Celsius) but windchill factor makes it feel like minus 15 to 20! At this second we are experiencing a white out snow storm! Will have to check out your Iris pics. I haven't been on here in 21 days because I can't stand to see all the lovely stuff that's being posted while our garden is under two feet of snow!
Delonix1 (Andy) I'm sorry to hear that you're still dry...was hoping that somehow or other you had some moisture down there...because we seem to have too much of it here! I hope it doesn't become warm suddenly because we will have flooding. I'm concerned when you say it's a hot winter...imagine what the temp of the Pacific Ocean is? That usually gives us an El Nino winter...but this year the polar winds have been very strong and the jet stream is really far south of us...taking the arctic cold farther down into the 48. It's the polar vortex that you've been hearing about!

Lori:

Wow! That's so amazing you've had so many polar vortex storms like most of the eastern U.S.

We have been so dry and hot this winter...you just can't imagine. Today the temp was 92ºF (33ºC) here were I live...even the coast was around 90ºF (32ºF). We've had many temps like these since the beginning of December. This is NOT common at all...especially for such a protracted period of time. Our rainy season total to date is only 3.5 inches (88 mm). After March we rarely receive rain. This means the drought emergency remains high for the whole state.

Oh that is just desperate. I'm so worried here too...last year on the 16th it was so warm...like summer. This year we had the coldest temps on record for St. Patrick's Day...it was minus 26 C. overnight and the temps today remained below the freezing point. They forecast that these temps will continue for two more days and then we are supposed to have a warming trend...the nights will be just below zero and the days marginally above! I should be getting ready to tap the maples...but the sap doesn't run when the night temps are so low.

its so amazing reading to two opposite extremes of weather from you and Delonix....not sure i could cope with either of the extremes....we have had record breaking wind and rain..flooding over many parts of the country for weeks on end months in some places. i think we will all be glad when spring has sprung..x

Lori; Sandra:

Yes, the weather in many parts of the world have been very unusual. Unfortunately, I think it may be the norm in some parts of the world.

According to the meteorologist the winter here in most of the west will be one of the warmest on record. The long-range forecast is for above normal temps and dry. This means severe water-rationing for most of the state of California. Most of the reservoirs are at between: 17 - 30%, which is extremely rare! :>(

Sandra: Was looking at the pics of the trees fallen like toothpicks! They will have to replant fairly quickly or they will have soil erosion..and that's not good for the fish in the streams and the small animals. Glad your Monkey Puzzle laughs at the wind! Wonder what a forest of MP would look like?
Delonix: I posted three pics of my front door area today, because overnight we received another 5-10 cm. of snow! It's been spring for two days...and we have this! We have set records for the coldest winter in living memory, and that's coast-to-coast-to-coast! then I see pictures of the Iditarod being run over thawing permafrost! No snow in parts of Alaska? somehow I don't think that's even close to "normal". :-(

Lori:

I know, the weather is just so crazy! We had four months (Dec - Mar) of summer. Now, the weather has started to change, we're getting some cloudier weather the last few days with some cooler temps: only 72ºF (22ºC) during the daytime and the morning lows have been 60ºF (15.6ºC), which isn't too hard to take. Although, we've gotten so used the 78 - 90ºF (26ºC - 33ºC) weather for so long.

30th March and it's cold and snowing! I cant' say any more... I'll lapse into nasty expletives!
Glad your weather is moderating, just wish ours would warm up so the snow can melt...still have 2 feet of snow in the bush!

Wow! That's incredible! I can't imagine such cold conditions this late in the year.

We've had some cooler rain today; however, this weekend through all next week very hot weather will be here.