There are times when I think the world has gone mad and other times I'm sure of it.

Last week it went to 80+ degrees (85 on my back porch) on Wednesday and Thursday and looks like it'll do the same for this week too! Now even for North Florida this just ain't right. I was planting like mad all weekend to get my blueberries, apples and pears into the ground because they're about to have bud break. Now I know doggone good and well that we're going to get at least one more hard freeze this winter (hopefully several more) so if those fool plants leaf out this early they'll get bit. Having just planted them I'm not going to allow them to set fruit this year but I'd hate to see them set back on leafing out just when they need to be making some growth. My poor figs have leafed out and lost two sets of leaves already and I haven't even gotten them out of their pots yet. I just put broccoli, kale and collards in the garden but if we keep getting this unseasonably warm weather you know they're not hardly going to be fit to eat and they'll bolt as fast as they can.

Global warming, global cooling, global nuttiness if you ask me.

.........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), January 28, 2002

Answers

Awful warm here in teh Ozarks as well. It was in the mid 70s today. Put my vote on global warming. Not just this year but decadal averages. Kim

-- kim (fleece@eritter.net), January 28, 2002.

One day last week we had snow, hail, rain and sun. My does get looking out the door as some had never seen snow before, when the sun came out they just stood there probably thinking that if they walked out something else might happen. This weather has been very unusual this year.

-- Leslie in Western WA (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), January 28, 2002.

What weather? We haven't had any yet in Michigan.

-- Susan in Northern Michigan (cobwoman@yahoo.com), January 28, 2002.

Last Monday there was a tornado here in CA that went thru my friends farm about 3 miles from our farm. This Monday we woke up to SNOW. Now that is very strange for the part of No. CA that we live in!

-- shari (smillers@snowcrest.net), January 28, 2002.

LOL, we had a blizzard on Sunday, and it was -8 this morning when I got up. We've been as low as -26 this year, so I think we are getting everyone's weather :) Only about 4' of snow on the flats though, we could use more.

Tracy in Idaho....

-- Tracy (zebella@mindspring.com), January 28, 2002.

Alan, I was thinking the same thing! Even the flies are still around. I am concerned that the orchard is going to start budding and then winter really will set in when spring is suppose to be here and we will lose the crop again this year.

-- Karen (mountains_mama@hotmail.com), January 28, 2002.

I think it is just a cycle of weather that is happening. I remember sitting in a park a few days before Christmas about 20+ years ago in a light blouse and slacks! We tend to forget things like that. I have to say though that this year I'm not surprised at the mild weather. We still could hear geese down in the swamp in early January. Also, the sand hill cranes were in no hurry to leave. With this mild winter temperatures, I bet we have a bumper crop of deer this year.

-- Ardie/WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), January 28, 2002.

I am not sure what is happening with this crazy weather. I am thankful for our beautiful weather. Our cow had her calf ,yesterday and we are expecting two more soon! I do hope this weather hangs around a few more days!

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), January 28, 2002.

I looked at a hive of bees this morning .They are working like it was middle of summer . , bringing loads of pollen . where are they getting it ?George in Louisiana

-- George Wilson (cwwhtw@aol.com), January 28, 2002.

We took our little boy home from Mexico in the year of "el nino" 1998 and nothing's been the same since (in the weather or in our home!)

-- rose marie wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), January 28, 2002.

I like it warmer. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind if the winters were always in the 60's here. How about the rain, Alan? Have you been bothered with drought? We need rain or snow here or we will have a bad summer.

-- Dee in NJ (gdgtur@goes.com), January 28, 2002.

Normal winter here, temp wise (-5 to +30F). Early snows melted and blew away. Less snowpack than last year, at this time. Unless Pacific NW starts sending snow this way, we're in-line for a third year of drought. Not looking forward to that.

Talked with my brother, up in MT, (65-mi south of the Canadian border, and he says snowpack is down 50% from last year and 75% from two years ago. Still he has a foot on the ground and the temps are normal (-14 to +22F) daily.

-- matt johnson (wyo_cowboy_us@yahoo.com), January 28, 2002.

Dee,

It seems to me that we're getting more rain this winter than we got last winter but I haven't tried to find any sources to confirm this. Of course, we're so short from going on five years of drought that it'll take years to make up the deficit. There's *supposed* to be a lake out back of my house but it's been dry prairie for years now.

Ardie,

We got your sandhill cranes. They were late getting here but they came in about a month ago. There's often multiple dozens to occasionally hundreds in the cattle pastures at the university. They fly in just as we drive past. Wonderful spectacle.

Sure hope we at least get enough cold weather to fulfill the chill hour requirements for all this fruit I've been putting in. Think I'll go ahead and put in the citrus and avacadoes this spring if this is what the weather is going to do. One way or the other I'll get *something* out of the orchard!

..........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@alantic.net), January 28, 2002.

Tonite while coming home through the "bottoms", I heard all the night critters making their "swamp music" like it was the middle of summer.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 28, 2002.

It was 48 degrees here in downeast Maine today. Thursday and Friday are supposed to be more "normal" temps, but who knows!!?? The snow we do have on the ground is melting fast!!

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), January 28, 2002.

Well, we had 16 inches of snow just after new years, and it was 73 today. Every dag on time I place an ad for firewood in the paper, its in the 70s that week the ad runs. The drought broke, its rained almost every day since the 1 st (or snowed) and ive gotten my not-a-4- wheel drive truck stuck 5 times. Thank god for nice neighborly folks with heavy chains- I had to be pulled out with a tractor and a truck (but, on the same note, Ive pulled my fair share of folks out of the mud recently, too, including the very same tracor that later pulled me out!). It finally started to dry out, and the corral and pasture are looking less and less like a lake and more like a mud flat (sigh=)

-- Kevin in NC (Vantravlrs@aol.com), January 28, 2002.

Last year spring came a month early, February, in Kentucky. I was outside painting all my barns, buildings, cages and house in the warm weather. We had tons of rain all spring and summer. Then fall came a month early also.

Now it's doing the same thing this year. My bulbs have started to come up, geese are flying north, even a starling has been picking at my house like she always does in the spring. Our outside wood furnace is out cold right now, and only gets fired up a couple days a week lately. The grass is still green here too. It's fine with me, I don't do winter well. I'm tired of splitting wood. Bring on the warm weather to Kentucky.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), January 29, 2002.

It was 86 degrees yesterday, only one degree less than our record high ever. Southeast wind blowing at 30 mph, 95% humidity. Who needs to shower; with that kind of humidity, stand naked in the yard, and towel off five minutes later. Phooey.

-- j.r. guerra in s. tx. (jrguerra@boultinghousesimpson.com), January 29, 2002.

-26 F here in southern Idaho this morning :)

-- Tracy (zebella@mindspring.com), January 29, 2002.

70 here. was hoping for at least one more snow. :o)

-- Kenneth in N.C. (wizardsplace13@hotmail.com), January 29, 2002.

Hello from Montana! Hooray, we finally got some snow that was worth measuring. We are in Central MT and I can tell you things are looking pretty scary here. This is our third year of drought, we've only gotten 50% of the snow acculation in the mountains that we had at this same time last year. Last summer we were in sorry shape as far as our water levels in our river and most of our streams and creeks dried up in July. If we don't get more snow pack in the mountains as well as in the plains we, well it's going to very scary, we for see water rationing in our future. Our temps. have been seasonally high until this latest storm. Since then our lows have been in the -0's and our highs in the low teens. That's fine with us, we just throw another log on the fire. Tee Hee Hee!

-- Kelle in MT (kvent1729@aol.com), January 29, 2002.

Throw more than one log in the fire! It's snowing! Hurray, maybe we won't dry up and blow away again like last year. http://vortex.plymouth.edu/uschill.gif

-- matt johnson (wyo_cowboy_us@yahoo.com), January 29, 2002.

Sigh...

Current Weather Conditions as of 01/29/02, 03:40 pm (Gainesville, FL) Temperature 80 °F Relative Humidity 68 %Rh

Probably have to mow the bloody lawn this weekend!!!

..........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), January 29, 2002.

I've got every door and window open! Gee it's nice outside. The knees of my jeans are all muddy from doing fences. Yippy Yi O Ki A!

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), January 29, 2002.

GLOBAL WARMING?? Hah!! We've had snow almost every day for the past couple weeks. -35F last 2 nights. Warning!! We've listened to your concerns and are in the process of sending you all some of our weather. Remember, you asked for it. No complaining,now!! Happy shoveling.. Tomas

-- Tomas in B.C. (bakerzee@hotmail.com), January 29, 2002.

May as well chime in from North Dakota! We are all over the board! Warm last week, all melty and sunny, zero this week. We think we are freeezing but really we haven't seen less then -10 and that was only a couple times. WE should be at that pretty reuglar this time of year????

e humans just think we know what our whether should be like. This continent has hasd seas in the middle of it, glaciers and I believe tropical like conditions before that. So just because we have tracked it for a couple hundred years... it's like saying we know all about 50 year old 'joe' cause we've known him for a year!

-- Novina in ND (homespun@stellarnet.com), January 30, 2002.