Weather

I think it safe to say, and most would agree, that the spring weather for 2019 has been rather unpleasant.  There may be one day of nice weather, but it is followed by several days of unseasonably cool weather.  Today was probably the first almost fully sunny day in a week or more.  The whole past week the daily high temperatures were below normal and for all but one day this applied to the daily lows.  One thing is for certain, weather is variable.

Currently, the normal high temperature in Madison for May 13 is 67 degrees, and the normal low temperature is 45 degrees.  A couple things got me thinking about the weather:  my part time work at a greenhouse, and an article in Sunday's paper for the garden calendar for the week of May 12.

My home made green house was planted last month, the row cover
area planted today

With my part time job at the greenhouse, I am in outdoor service, thus, I help people load mulch, potting soil, compost, straw bales, peat moss, etc into their vehicles.  I also help load plants into cars, and move the carts that people use.  So far, I have been called off work the same number of days that I have worked.  They do not expect much business in cool, let me say cold, weather.  The plants may fly out, but when it is cold and wet, most people are not purchasing potting soil.  This week I work two full days, and I doubt that I will be called off. 

My raised bed was planted about one month ago

But, it was the garden calendar that really got me thinking.  In regard to vegetables it said:  "It is usually safe to put tomato and pepper transplants out after May in in the Madison area, but outlying areas such as Blue Mounds and Oregon, etc, may not be warm enough yet."  As an urban planner, I am well aware of the urban heat island effect, but I never thought it would be reported as such in a local news garden calendar.  But, what we really struck me was the next sentence:  "Air temperatures should not go lower than 55 degrees or higher."  It then goes on to recognize that frosts may be possible in the Madison area, or even a freeze after May 15, so be prepared to cover the plants.

This struck me because the past several days the temperatures struggled to get to 55 degrees, and that is for the high.  The forecasted low for this morning was to be 37 degrees, but it was down to 33 degrees. Awfully close to a frost. So, we are one day into the weekly garden calendar, and I am glad that I had not put in my tomato plants this weekend. The main reason is I tend to wait until about May 15, but the soil was too wet to work.  Breaking my general theory of waiting, I put in my cold tolerant and even my tomato plants this afternoon.  I did place a row cover over the young plants, taht should provide some protection, although being white in color it will not do much to increase soil temperature.  One other problem is that the weather has been so bad that the plants have not been out as long as usual to "harden" off.  Soil temperatures are probably lower than normal, and I perhaps should have waited for the tomato plants, but with all the rain we have had, and the paper's five day forecast for rain on Tuesday PM, and Thursday, who knows when the garden soil would again be workable.

The garden calendar is also interesting for reporting the need for temperatures in the mid fifties, but  the normal low for today is 45 degrees, or ten degrees below what they wish. I guess they tend toward the optimistic and a heat wave.  The month of  May can warm up fast, but the normal low does not get to about 55 degrees until the end of the month.

Avg  Temps for Madison, WI in May

If one thing we know about the weather in Wisconsin, is wait a few minutes and it will change.  The variability of the weather puts the populace on edge, and the first five months of this year have been challenging for us in our need to weather the weather.  It was not that long ago when experts were concerned about how low the water level in Lake Michigan was, now they are concerned about how high the water level is at this point in time. Back to temperature, how cool is it?  Well, the newspaper has shifted from reporting heating degree days to cooling degree days.  The year to date for cooling degrees days, if you have not guessed, is Zero.  They did not report how many heating degree days were required yesterday with a high of 55 and blustery winds.