The USDA's gardening zones shifted, this map shows you what's changed
apps.npr.org
apps.npr.org
For the last 8 years or so, ~April 20th has been very safe. I usually pick the first weekend after ~April 15th, which doesn't have an overnight low under 38 on the 10 day forecast. Haven't had an issue yet.
Thankfully some of the stores are starting to break the "rule", because for a long time it was impossible to even get plants before Mother's Day.
I'm guessing that the lawn itself is incidental, and by not mowing you're letting flowers (including dandelions and clover?) grow?
Also, I'm gonna be up front about my ulterior motive: I hardly mow my lawn anyways and would love to have another reason to justify / rationalize what I'm already doing :)
But still - genuine question.
There's debate about how effective it is, but that's the theory at least.
The perfect lawn is a relatively new thing - blame Scott lawn and other lawn-care companies.
This year, this year the day before Mother's Day saw a hailstorm that decimated much of our cold-weather early crops (arugula, peas, spinach etc.)
4.5 degrees warmer since when? And where?
About this data
The 2012 USDA hardiness zones were calculated using the average lowest winter temperature for the observation period of 1976-2005. The new zones are calculated using the years 1991-2020. These two observation windows overlap. Colors show the difference between the two 30-year averages for each place on the map.
My area is 3.8F warmer using this method.
This was a time period in which scientists actually improved these technologies and practices, and we stand on the shoulders of that progress. They were doing the best they could with what they had.
Geocentrism was also well on the way out 300 years ago.
My point is mostly that people in the past did some great work, and having weird beliefs didn’t diminish that. People in the future will think we were similarly clueless for all kinds of reasons. You just do the best you can with the information and environment you’ve got.
The part about measurements is fair (they weren’t standardized at the time), but the rest is irrelevant. The decision of whether or not to use data should be on the basis of its scientific rigour and veracity, not the scientist’s beliefs.
Climate Instability sounds sort of clearly bad (I think most people consider instability bad).
For solutions I’m in favor of really aggressive carbon taxes and sanctions/secondary sanctions against that don’t implement them. But that’s the sort of thing better left to regulators and diplomats.
My thought process was: Climate change is mostly bad, but it sounds like a sort of neutral, or even natural process. Environmentalists have done a good job pointing out that it is bad, but the name isn’t doing them any favors. Instability seems to be one of the major side effects and instability is very obviously bad.
I guess I’m curious if there’s a “pro-fixing the problem” argument against “climate instability.” By default I’m going to assume that I’m mostly being downvoted by climate deniers. But I’d be happy to be educated otherwise, if there’s a real argument against calling it instability.
Climate change feels euphemistic compared to climate instability. Like, all things change, so it's chill, right? I like "instability" because it feels like the time of chaos and contempt that the scientific consensus tells us we're facing.
But... then I realize I'm wordsmithing a problem. While rhetoric is important and all, I think many of our current issues get over-talked and under-actioned. I don't know that the wording is significant relative to other barriers to bringing about change.
I don’t love “climate change” because it sounds too euphemistic, IMO. But the wording isn’t the biggest problem anyway. A
nd it has solid associations at this point.
Human factor here: Sometimes, change can be a good thing. You don't hear that instability can sometimes be a good thing.
The term is often misattributed to Luntz, but it existed before him.
I think instability sells it better to someone who is not sure if they believe in climate change because they can personally see it (worsening hurricanes, worsening cold snaps, hotter days).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40344698
I think the responses were reasonable. I’m still convinced Climate Change is not a very good name, somebody suggested Climate Crisis which just sounds better in every way. But anyway, the name is not the most pressing part of the whole thing.
Even where I am it’s considered a temperate climate and a friend’s grape crops were almost totally destroyed from a snap freeze in late February. He said it wasn’t that uncommon for the freezes to happen when he started, but what changed is how early the vines start budding, like you mentioned.
Late-starting crops can bypass this problem, but my understanding is that they often need irrigation because they grow into the tail of summer. That’s not really viable here either, as water’s gradually diminishing from our extended drought.
In the last 5-10 years we struggle to even get on the ground until mid-May. This year is no exception. May 13th already and we have only half of a field planted so far.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mcdougall-cr...
the whole area is actually surprisingly dry in terms of rain due to being in the rain shadow of the mountain. the lakes nearby make it tolerable, but even a small shift in climate patterns will turn the area into a near-desert.
And yet just after that in 2021 we had temps drop to 0°F or slightly negative. In each of the subsequent 2 winters we've also had temps drop lower than anything shown on this graph :)
* https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/20/533662790...
* https://www.azfamily.com/2023/07/20/how-extreme-heat-can-imp...
Air is no longer dense enough:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_altitude
* https://skybrary.aero/articles/density-altitude
* PDF: https://www.faasafety.gov/files/events/NM/NM07/2023/NM071202...
Can you do that with temperatures not in kelvin (with true zero)?
1 to 4 degrees Celsius is not a 300% increase in anything but the integer representing temp. Try that in Fahrenheit or with a negative value.
Edit: I think I initially missed your point that percentages are kind of silly to use anyway.
Well, technically any absolute scale: Kelvin is the most common, but Rankine has the same feature. (It just uses Fahrenheit-sized degrees instead of Celsius-sized.)
Our problem during winter storm Uri is that the Texas electrical grid almost failed and we had to power for nearly a week in subfreezing temps.
The George W. Bush administration (e.g. via Frank Luntz) advocated for the term "climate change" because Republican strategists wanted to leverage perceived uncertainty about global warming as much as possible.[0]
This is a PR effort that seems to have largely succeeded (both in adoption and its goals) and it's unfortunate that when we are literally talking about warming we adopt a term that is less precise; you are talking about global warming here.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.c...
It's conflating two things, Luntz and Republicans at the time did want to push a narrative of uncertainty surrounding greenhouse gas emissions and they wanted to switch terminology in a pro-environmental move because of the existing connotations surrounding global warming and "environmentalists" made it hard to get any Republican support.
For example, every +0C day in the winter leads to snow melt. The total amount of snow collected per winter depends highly on the number of +0C days in the winter. Your average temperature might only go from -11C to -10C, but if there are 20 additional +0C days, you might end up with a lot less snow cover.
> The 2012 USDA hardiness zones were calculated using the average lowest winter temperature for the observation period of 1976-2005. The new zones are calculated using the years 1991-2020. These two observation windows overlap. Colors show the difference between the two 30-year averages for each place on the map.
So while climate change may or may not be the explanation for broader trends in the map, you cannot rule out noise for any particular location, especially given that the methodology uses the lowest winter temperatures in that window as the basis for the zone. That's a fundamentally noisy metric. For example, this drops the blizzard of 1978 -- one of the largest ever in US history -- from the dataset. It's hard to know how that affects the zones without careful inspection, but major weather events like that can easily affect simple outlier analysis. You can see this in the dot plots for Raleigh (the default), which had two outliers in the winters around 1995, and then an otherwise flat series of data. What was the prior dataset? We don't know. Just look at the two default examples:
It would only take a small number of cold or warm winters to shift those means in either direction.
I don't want to overemphasize a silly little article about plants, but IMO, the fact that NPR buried this information while hyper-focusing on specific locations is just another failure of basic journalism. Telling people that an arbitrarily defined metric has been changed is meaningless, unless you tell people the specific change that was made. It should be the first or second thing they tell you, not buried in a hidden footnote.
I appreciate data skepticism, but your point about the 1978 blizzard doesn't really help, as blizzards and snow events in general are not generally associated with extreme cold events.
Also, the site tells you about the changes in whatever place you plugged in. I'm not clear on why you're calling this "hyper-focusing on specific locations". It's literally telling you what's going on in your neighborhood and gives good reasons to even then discount the new number.
Unless you're seeing a wildly different website than I am, this is a strange definition of "up front and clear".
But just to belabor the point a bit, if I were a journalist covering this, my lede -- the very first paragraph of the story -- would be something like this:
"Recently, the USDA updated its plant hardiness map for the first time in 11 years. Among other changes, it based the definition of winter temperatures on data from 1991-2020, dropping data from 1976-1991 as part of the update. This resulted in a calculated increase in lowest winter temperatures in many locations across the United States."
Simple. Factual. Unbiased. Provides necessary context. It isn't that hard to be a good journalist here. I hesitate to speculate, but my suspicion is that this was buried because it weakens a narrative that the writers and editors were trying to achieve, by adding nuance.
Look at the Raleigh graph - there are a few outliers, but the average (the one number being reported) is right in that cluster of flat years. And that's what's apparently gone up 5°
There is always going to be information lost when you condense 30 years into 1 number, but you are "pushing a narrative" far more than they are
For Raleigh (new zone high 8a, almost 8b) there are three winters in the low end of the "previous" zone of 7b in the last 10 years. For St Louis (new zone 7a) there were two winters in zone 6b and one in 5b (!) in the time since 2013. There were an equal number of winters in the "old zone" of 6b and the "new zone" of 6a in the dataset shown. Even calling that an outlier is stretching the definition of the term! And I didn't cherry-pick these examples...these were the ones NPR chose to highlight.
This isn't "pedantic". It's a basic understanding of statistics and the methods being applied here.
The frame link goes to: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/b1d1fd9b284e46dcaa4...
[0] This concept implemented at scale by Roger Ailes, founder of Fox news, who famously said "Our viewers don't want be informed, they want to feel informed", which became the motto of the newsroom
One ref among many: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/05/18/roger-ailes-transform...
Why on earth would you choose an article like this to jump on a hobby horse about infotainment?
I would not have said anything, but seeing the prior two comment, I responded to add something; sorry you found it disappointing, but my intent was not to "jump on a hobby horse about infotainment".
Did you already know that these ‘hardiness’ climate zones are only based on mean winter minimum temperature? They say nothing about drought prevalence, peak heat, or the timing, frequency and duration of cold snaps?
If you did, well, sure, this probably wouldn’t have been very informative. But for anyone for whom all that was news, this is pretty good information - and in particular is valuable context over and above just a raw map of the zones.
The title of the article doesn't imply that it will teach you how to implement. The title explicitly states it is a map to show you the shift in zones, and it does that very clearly.
That may not be bad but it may not be what you wanted.
Anecdotally I learned a lot from this - haven't even been aware of the concept.
As another said, scrolling to do anything but move content up and down is a miserable experience for some people.
On a side note, why is it always that maps of phenomena that respect no political boundaries, tend to be cut off at the borders? It's absurd to me, and it happens so often. Even if you're an American, and only care about American Americanism, you'd still benefit from seeing how things play out beyond these arbitrary borderlines.
Oh, and their "zip code" search is broken, it takes me to the state capital over a hundred miles away, in a totally different climactic zone. Doubly broken.
Winters almost do not exist here in the mid-Atlantic. Sure, there are some cold snaps, but they do not last as long as 20 to 30 years ago. Snowfall? Getting less and less with an occasional nor'easter here and there.
Ancedotally, in late February, I had to mow the lawn.
We've started measuring TTFF. (Time-to-first-frost). Historically, it was in early to mid October for decades. Now it's pushing mid-November. The growing seasons are longer, for sure.
That seems like a regional saying, which translates very poorly to an online global audience. I read winters almost do not exist and assumed you were being more literal than "there's less snow".
It's snowed here 2-3 times in the last couple decades, each time for maybe a minute or two. I still wouldn't say we don't have a winter. For this area, winter is when it rains. Which is different than summer because there's no rain in the summer, almost ever (maybe one day on average as freak weather).
Edit: I seem to have struck a nerve here, but I'm not sure why noting that a particular turn of phrase might be confusing to people from other areas would do so.
We had a few close calls for big snow, but they never materialized. This is unheard of.
Even during strong El Nino patterns, the east coast is supposed to receive good snowfall. It did not happen. Even with a -NAO, -AO, +PNA!
For example, my initial interpretation of your early statements in that comment was that you were saying there's little difference between fall and spring from winter, that your winters don't have a noticeable difference to the other seasons. From the rest of your comment it sounds like it's just somewhat milder than it used to be, but still notably different weather pattern.
Not at all how it was in the exact town 35 years ago as a kid. It wasn't frigid, even then, but we had a real Winter season where it would consistently stay cold for 3-4 months.
Now, even though it can get cold, it seems like you have a "nice day" weekend at least once a month.
The last time I had to use my snowblower was in a mega snowstorm during the winter of 2015/2016. That is simply unheard of! (at least here)
edit: I don't think this has solely to do with the ambient temperature and more to do with wet bulb temperatures.
This map update is nonsense for my area.
It's gotten to freezing in southern california, in that decade, as well - at night. Growing up there, it never did, but around 2002 or so it got to 30 one night. I have friends in the PNW, utah, colorado, texas. The US has a long cycle, and listening to people who have either moved around a lot or not been alive for more than 1 cycle is funny to me.
I enjoy talking to old timers, especially about nature. Prior to 2021, the year everyone made fun of Texans, there was 1 large freeze in the early or mid 2000s, where ice formed on power lines and broke the lines. Prior to that, it hadn't happened for at least 30 years to anyone's recollection.
Oh, and i live in a sub-tropical rainforest. It rained exactly 5" this weekend - i just went and checked. I comment a lot about the weather on my boring facebook account, so i can see all the times it's rained more than an inch or two - or where rain was predicted but didn't appear.
Come summertime, when it's "the hottest ever recorded", there will be different arguments from one side, as usual.
I grow 25+ kinds of fruit and I’d love to add more. But the reality is that fruits like figs and muscadines still die every winter where I am at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardiness_zone
(It was originally the 13 bands, but as things got more detailed they realized splitting them made a difference, I suspect.)
Zone 10 is tropical, and never gets frost. Each “a” and “b” represents a 5 degree range.
You can also create microclimates, local areas where the zone effectively shifts up or down about 5 degrees.
As an aside, there is a heat hardiness zone that rarely gets talked about.
I would like to see these two maps overlaid on each other somehow.
I'm not finding any rationale on why subdividing instead of renumbering, but it probably alleviated confusion at the time. If you're in zone 6b, but you're used to thinking of yourself as zone 6, you're still mostly right even if you forget whether you're in a or b. Easier to remember than suddenly you're in zone 13.
"Old numbering or new numbering?"
"I don't know, just says zone 6"
If you reuse your numbering system, you have to specify which version you're using. Using an all-new numbering scheme eliminates that.
If the number space got doubled zone 6 would still exist but mean something completely different now. You can’t tell if it’s the old or new system at all because the first numbers all got re-used but with different meaning.
“Not winter hardy in our new climate”
Kind of a “buyer beware” type thing for long time customers used to buying these plants that while previously dependable perennials now might not be.
Really disturbing stuff to see.
The label I saw was on a native to Mexico plant.
Anyone have a link to the actual map of the zone changes without the interactive TikTok experience?
http://planthardiness.gc.ca/?m=1
i would love to see something for the south as well (just quickly googled) https://davisla.wordpress.com/plant-zones/south-america-plan...
I'm unsure though if they receive an update recently or if they will anytime soon
For instance, the NPR source says that Portland, OR was reclassified as 9b, whereas the actual USDA map says that depending on your elevation, it's still either 8a or 8b.
Made me keep reading on a subject I care not at all about.
I think the US should move to SI but as long as we haven't (and have actually taken steps backwards during the Bush administration) as far as I am concerned it is journalistic malpractice if not active disinformation to report temperature changes in C in US media.
F is a much better unit than C for everyday use.
Probably the easiest measurement change to get used to. There's very little difference in actual practice.
C makes it easier to reason regarding freezing/boiling - it's simpler to think about if it's going to snow by relating it to 0 then 32. But that's about the only difference in day to day use I can think of.
I haven't heard any reason to prefer F over C however (unlike Feet for example).
here is a counter-anecdotal evidence I moved to the US 25 years ago, still hate F with passion
I gave it a serious go. After trying to get used to F for 20-some years, I went back and set all my thermometers and online weather maps to Celsius.
Farenheit is an absurdly bad scale choice. It is needlessly granular for everyday use and feels wholly arbitrary.
32 degrees is freezing, so how far is 19 F from freezing? 32-19 ... ummm 13 degrees and that is as far as 32+19 ... ummm 51 degrees ... what are we talking about? -10 and +10 Celsius ...
I still don't know if 120F would burn my hands or not, if 150 F scalds or not. I have no sense about temperatures above 100F (and that one only because it is a threshold for fever)
I don't see how C would be easier for that. How do you know if 49℃ burns or 66℃ scalds?
50, which is halfway between 0 and 100, so that, too, kind of makes sense.
People say this, and it confuses me.
Basically the only difference between the two is the absolute numbers and the resolution.
Regarding resolution, for me the difference between, say 22 C and 23 C isn’t consistently noticeable - it depends on what I’m wearing, my recent activity level, humidity, etc. having a finer resolution - i.e. between 72 and 73 F isn’t that useful. That is to say, I’d change my plans if it were say 8 C outside instead of 18 C, but I wouldn’t if it were 17 instead of 18.
Regarding absolute numbers - sure with Fahrenheit you don’t need to use negative numbers as much, but apparently you still need to across much of the US, and dealing with negative numbers is… fine? Having generally smaller numbers (i.e. most of Earth has natural temperatures of - 40 to +40) is probably better? And having that obvious distinction of when water freezes makes some sense maybe?
I honestly don’t thing either is particularly better for everyday use, it’s just that a lot of people are habituated to one or the other.
All nice whole round numbers.
- “It’s going to be in the 70’s”.
- “Nice!”
The precision is good too. A nice range in each block. And block crossover is fine.
- “Might hit the low 70’s later”
- “OK I’ll bring a packable hoodie.”
Honestly, you don't really need to, at least on a day-to-day basis. I grew up somewhere where it got <0F every year for like a week at a time. You will just colloquially refer to it as "below zero" which roughly translates into "yea f** that, we aren't going outside".
The only time I ever really remembered distinguishing between degrees below 0 was midwestern trash talk between e.g. IL, WI, MN, and ND. (If I remember correctly, ND wins on wind chill)
You're welcome.
It's more handy for cold weather because freezing is 0° (which is way less awkward than 32°), and it's more handy for cooking because boiling is 100° (which is way less awkward than 212°).
It's also nice that the human body temperature is a round 37° (rather than 98.6°).
For warmer weather, F and C are about the same to me. It's easy to remember that 20°C is perfect, 30°C is hot, and 40°C is miserable — just as it is easy to remember the equivalent 70°F, 85°F, and 100°F.
So I have found that C is better for day-to-day use, even though it's not what I grew up with and I have drastically less experience with it. All I needed was a little time to get used to it.
Not sure if it was my perception, I looked up a chart and it confirmed the trend.
edit: I can't find the chart I saw for my region. The closest is this: Avg Jan temps but for whole state.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-gla...