Native Tree Society BBS

ENTS: This is an update on the weather pattern that has produced cold temperatures in the eastern U.S. In Minneapolis so far, we have had 31 days with temperatures below zero. Another arctic air mass has settled in today and the high will probably be about -8 or so. However, +44 and +34 are forecast...

Bob, Ed: Garrison Keillor is going to retire soon, so his silence is coming. Regarding the squirrels, I had never seen a complex tunnel structure like this before. Perhaps they exist for a short time every winter, but because we have not had any significant snowfall for a long time, and its been so ...

ENTS: How do gray squirrels survive the 6 weeks of extremely cold weather we have had in Minnesota this winter? During the coldest days, they stay in their nests in the tree canopy built of leaves with a very high R-value as insulation, for several days at a time. However, now that the extreme cold ...

Yes, there are similar graphs for Minneapolis. We had an average of 44 below zero nights per winter n the 1970s, 35 in the 1980s and 1990s, and now its down to only about 22 or 25, depending on which weather station you look at. We still rank as the coldest major city in the U.S. because everyone el...

Bob: Yes, I think historically there have been 1 or 2 episodes of the polar vortex invading the northern part of the 48 states every winter. They just didn't use that terminology publicly until recently. I think the two nationwide channels/websites that do weather (The Weather Channel and Weather Na...

Bob: I agree that there was too much hype, although maybe the hype would have been justified if the models had not over-predicted the cold spell. The coldest temperature at any station in Minnesota during the cold spell was -46, in Minneapolis it was -23, with a high of -12 yesterday. That's kind of...

Bob: The edge of the polar vortex rolled in Sunday afternoon between 4 and 5. There were fuzzy clouds giving way to a clear sky, just like they showed in The Day After Tomorrow. It was cool to see, and it was visible on satellite images as well. However, it didn't instantly plunge to -100 and freeze...

ENTS: The University of Minnesota has been temporarily relocated to the planet Hoth, until the guys in the Physics Department figure out how to get us back to Earth. For the last 4 weeks, conversations most days at the lunch table have consisted of whether the daily high will make it to zero, or per...

Larry: Even with the record late fall we have this year, there won't be any fall color by Nov. 21, and only marcesant leaves on oaks will still remain attached. So, it will be a good time to measure white pines. Its amazing that we still have (on Nov. 3) a number of trees with green foliage in Minne...

NTS: While most people concentrate on red fall colors, here are two images of fall gold. First, very metallic-looking gold on leaves of the native shrub Diervilla lonicera (Bush honeysuckle). An unusual sequence of weather, very warm followed by colder than average, has led to this metallic look, wh...