"It's horizontal weather out"
Slang for heavy snow or rain with extremely high winds.
Okay, let's just review the last few weeks of spring weather:
The driest April since 1881.
Record high temperatures.
A season 3 weeks ahead of normal.
So we all knew it was too good to last.....
Like a Maple Leaf winning streak or a Larry King marriage; we're pulling for them. But sooner or later, the wheels will fall off. Ditto the weather here in Southern Ontario; it's a leaky vessel to pour much hope into.
Winds touched 100 clicks here yesterday afternoon. Dance partners included heavy rain, hail, sleet and snow throughout the day and overnight; horizontal weather indeed!
The snow is not deep, but it's certainly crisp and even this morning, just in time for Mother's Day.
Bless their cold tolerant little hearts, our first sweet corn planting chose yesterday to make their first appearance above ground, just in time for the frost that we enjoyed overnight.
The actual temperature of a "killing frost" is quite different from one crop to the next. Cole crops like cabbage and broccoli are extremely frost tolerant. Sweet corn, being a warm weather crop that will not grow below 10 degrees C. is considerably less tolerant.
For corn, a "simple frost" is anything warmer than 28 degrees F. Corn will survive short periods at this temperature, shake it off, and keep growing once the weather gets warmer again.
Lethal cold, or the killing temperature for corn is anything below 28 degrees F. This will kill the growing point (even of corn below the ground). It takes a few days to diagnose; cooler weather prolongs your diagnosis,because the corn is merely being refrigerated, rather than growing.
We usually aim for August 1 as the start date for sweet corn in our area. This frost certainly has thrown a wrench into the works; call us simple but we don't know whether our frost was a killing one yet; stay tuned for crop updates.
Happy Mother's Day!
Guy
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