Search Results for: weather where you are

Greetings from Athens, GA! I am happy to join the group of contributors to the Garden Professors blog. My name is Pam Knox, and I am an agricultural climatologist in Extension at the University of Georgia as well as the Director of the UGA Weather Network and a former State Climatologist from Wisconsin. While I don’t claim to be an expert in gardening, I do know a thing or two about how weather and climate affect plants and hope to share some of that expertise with you over time.… Continue reading this article “The weather where you are”

Since my last post, the news has been full of one weather disaster after another. Wildfires in Maui. The remains of Hurricane Hilary moving north into California and other parts of the western USA with moisture even streaming as far east as Wisconsin. Record-breaking heat and humidity across most of the continental USA and severe weather outbreaks in the Midwest and Northeast. This does not even include the typhoons, floods, droughts, and heat waves occurring in other parts of the world at the same time.… Continue reading this article “Preparing your landscape for extreme weather”

I started writing for The Garden Professors a little over a year ago. My very first posting was on “The weather where you are.” In that article, I described some simple ways to measure the microclimates around your yard using some simple hand instruments. But many of you are already well past that and have your own weather stations. For those of you who don’t, here are some considerations for adding a weather station to your garden and a shameless plug for CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow Network), a citizen science network of rainfall (and snowfall!)… Continue reading this article “Measuring the weather in your garden”

In this blog, I usually talk about how the weather affects gardens and plants, but today I am going to change the focus and talk about how the weather affects gardeners. By now, many of you in the Southern US and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere are starting to see spring leaves and flowers appear and are busy working outdoors in your gardens planting new crops and flowers or getting the soil ready to take the seedlings.… Continue reading this article “How the weather affects gardeners’ health”

Have you noticed that this winter has been full of ups and downs in temperature, with warmth and drought in some areas and impactful winter storms in others? The western United States has been mostly warmer and drier than normal with little precipitation except in the highest peaks, and even then, it has been scarce. The eastern United States has been hit by several significant winter precipitation events and a crippling freeze that reached down into central Florida.… Continue reading this article ““Frightful weather”—Snow, ice, and the polar vortex”

How did your garden fare this year? No matter how it grew, at least some of the impact was due to this year’s weather, although careful soil preparation and a good watering plan can fend off some of the worst effects. As usual, my last blog post of the year will be a brief review of this year’s climate and a look ahead to next year. Gardeners must prepare as well as dream! My review will focus heavily on the United States, but I will try to put in a little for our non-US readers too.… Continue reading this article “Goodbye to another weather year–2025 in review”

If you spend much time on social media, you have probably seen screaming headlines on Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere about impending extreme weather. In the last few weeks I have seen wild stories about a late-season tropical storm forming in the Caribbean and an Arctic outbreak and snowstorm heading through the eastern US all the way to the Gulf. Neither of these had any real chance of occurrence but the people who post them are looking for clicks and attention.… Continue reading this article “Weather forecasting for gardeners and how social media misuses those predictions”

In my household, the weather is a common subject of conversation. That is only partly because I am married to a meteorologist. In fact, I have noticed that I can talk to almost anyone about the weather, and I suspect you can too. Weather is most captivating when something interesting is occurring, like liquid falling from the sky. When I give talks to master gardener groups, they are almost always consumed with how the weather is affecting their gardens.… Continue reading this article “How different types of precipitation affect your garden”

Have you ever stopped while you were gardening to look at the clouds? Clouds, like flowers, come in a variety of shapes and sizes that can form beautiful patterns in the sky. But clouds are not just pretty, they can also be used to make predictions about the weather in the coming days. In this week’s post, we will look at the different types of clouds and how they relate to coming weather. You can use that to prepare for your garden work by knowing when it will be sunny and predicting when rain is coming.… Continue reading this article “Using clouds to predict the weather”

For those of us in the Southeastern United States, this past week has been a whirlwind of preparation for Hurricane Helene, followed by the terrifying storm itself and now, for some people, months of clean-up and houses, yards, and gardens that may never be the same. My post this week (I did not get to it last week because of the impending storm) will be about how to prepare for an extreme weather event, including where to find accurate and timely information on weather forecasts and how to prepare your house and garden for the extreme weather you may suffer.… Continue reading this article “Getting ready for an extreme weather event”