Greetings from Tucson. Here is a picture of my new citrus covered to protect them from the hard freeze. When this picture was taken it was about 10:00am on 12/31, rain/slush/snow mix, temp about 35. I have frost cloth, 250 watt halogen work lights (available at Home Depot for $7 each) and C7 Christmas lights. I added the Christmas lights when the hard freeze warning came out, just in case. Am leaving the lights on continuously to make sure it is warm enough.
Low temps have been:
12/30 27.5
12/31 26.5
1/1 24.5
Projected 1/2 low is 27 but with more rapid warming than the past two mornings (on 12/31 and 1/1 we did not get above freezing until about 0900), perhaps around 0800). Believe it or not, we are in a relative warm microclimate because other parts of Tucson were 3-4 degrees colder than we were. And, as you can see from the picture, the citrus are planted on a slope allowing colder air to sink away to the wash at the end of the property. While I do have a recording weather station and upload to Weather Underground (www.wunderground.com), here are a few sites/features that you might find useful in monitoring the temperatures and seeing what your microclimate is.
(1) Goto
www.wunderground.com, input your zip code and then click on "Wundermap" in the left column. It shows you reporting weather stations and the temperatures associated with them. Here is an example:
http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=32.17956543&lon=-110.80342865&zoom=10&pin=Tucson%2c%20AZ.
(2) Goto
http://forecast.weather.gov//wxplanner.php?site=twc and input your latitude and longitude. While this is for Tucson, you can choose other sites. They are real close on temperatures based on comparison to my weather station results.
Happy New Year's and here's to warmer temperatures!!
P.
