Perhaps The Last Bite Out of Winter

March 27, 2008

The freeze that occurred Tuesday morning, March 25th, sort of snuck in. Leaving the office on Friday, March 21, the report for central Alabama Monday and Tuesday was around 35 degrees. I was a little surprised Sunday morning when I was called by a news paper reporter wanting to talk about the cold front moving in. Sunday evening when my Blackberry system was up and running and I checked the forecast I saw that the temperatures had been lowered to 32 for Tuesday.

The cold front that was moving in must have been hard for the meterologist to get a handle on. During the day the forecasts I was checking went from 32 to 30 then 27 and back up to 29. In reality, all of these temperatures were seen, even some lower and some higher.

In central Alabama I recorded temperatures during the coldest part of the morning from 25 to 34 degrees depending on elevation and air drainage. Reports from extension agents in north Alabama, Doug Chapman, Mike Reeves, and Dan Porch, gave temperatures from 24 to 30. Even as far south as Dothan our weather tower at the Wiregrass Research and Extension Center recorded 32 degrees.

In looking at peaches yesterday I found from 5% flower damage to as high as 90% flower damage. The amount of damage related some to cultivar but, mostly to location. There will be a few sites where the crop potential has been reduced. There will also be locations within blocks where fruit load will be light and other areas in the same block that will be fine. Overall I'm optimistic, crop potential should still be good

Similar reports came from north Alabama, crop stages were further behind and what has been checked so far indicate the amount of flower thinning was not excessive. As always it will take several days to a week to get a better handle on the total picture.