Coldest morning of the year coming up..

hi Stan -3 centigrade here today and it has been for the last 4 days. So much warmer where you are. what does a '10b winter' mean? Not a phrase I've come across. So you are getting warmer then. We don't tend to use the zone rating here but it does make sense.

Hello Seagirl!..Its a USDA rating. For our history we've been 9b with a few 9a -maybe 8b winters. That was for the early 20th century to maybe the 1970's. And then things got milder. Every deep freeze we've had..has almost been perfectly milder then the last.Less days of it,not as low a temperature..like a perfect graph.
In 2012 the USDA changed everybody near the coast in California a half zone. Winter lows in San Francisco have been equal to Los Angeles. Summers are not-lol.
The English Empire would be Z8b(if not all winter- streaks of real cold) and 9b to 10a ish at Tresco.

If it also holds that our lowest temperture this winter is 36f? This would be the warmest low ever. And that goes back to ~1950~ records. Hayward was mostly just orchards pre 1950.

Happy New year Stan, stay safe.

I hope it doesn't get too cold for you. I hate frost, and I'm lucky in that south west Wales usually gets relatively little in comparison to other places around the world :)

Happy new Year !

Thanks for the explanation Stan. Hope you have a wonderful new year. All the best for 2015

Are they rewriting those maps again? Since 1990's our weather has become much warmer, but the swing of warm to cold and wet to dry has been extreme in some years. Two summers ago it was so dry and hot that the farms in the area were losing their corn crops... this past summer we had no extreme heat...our average temps rarely got above 80*F. bumper crops though. We had a very long autumn (also wet) and although we are getting enough precip it's been back and forth between +2 C and minus 20 C. Schizo! I live in 3-4!

The farther north,the faster the change Lori. Now,I said change not just warmer. The swings of weather get wider,and overall- yes,warmer.
I see that up in Canada's far north, Killer Whales are now hunting the Narl Whales to near extinction..no more sea pack that once kept the predatory whales out.

Down here- that heavy rain/drought is our swing with a ratcheting up of warmer temps by the year seems like.

If I lived on the Pacific coast I'd be worried about drift from Fukushima. seals and shore birds seem to be suffering starvation and I was wondering if that's why the Orcas have gone to the high arctic?