So early
When you have four days or more in a row of 65ºF (18ºC) temperatures in February, strange, potentially bad things start happening.
Trees wake up early. Very early. I noticed this magnolia when driving home from the bakery on Friday. Yes, that's Friday, February 24. Magnolia blooms.
When I got into my own neighborhood, I snapped this terrible photo:
Saturday cooled off quite a bit (got below freezing) and with temperatures a bit more reasonable (that is, cold) since then, the tree appears to have decided not to open another bloom:
I just took that shot this morning.
Back to Saturday, where the trees in downtown Maplewood were shouting SPRING!
We had a similar thing happen 10 years ago, just after my garden expanded. A very warm March made all of the trees wake up early but then a brutal April cold snap killed all of the growth.
I'm really hoping we're not going to have another one of those this year.
(Back into the low 70's on Tuesday...)
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The buds on some trees have me worrying also about what will happen to them when the frigid temperatures return.
I was just going to say "St Louis looks a lot like here." It's actually been MUCH warmer in your neck of the woods than here. Our night-time lows have been in the mid 30s all of last week.
It's so interesting hearing what the weather is like in other parts of the country. It looks like our spring is going to be delayed this year, cold continues, with some areas receiving more snow.
I just drove past that magnolia from the first photo, and all of the flower buds are brown now.
Oh no, poor magnolia! Your warm late winter is very interesting. As Loree said, we continue to have below normal temperatures for this time of year.
Poor trees. :(