Hard freeze early Sunday and Monday in the Philly region could kill some ambitious blooms and blossoms
Temperatures are heading into the 20s, but the recent chill might serve the plants well.
Mass destruction of those precocious blooms and blossoms isn’t expected, but the nonwinter of 2022-23 is about to chill the region with a farewell significant hard freeze.
Temperatures could fall into the upper 20s even at the freeze-resistant Philadelphia International Airport on Sunday morning, and perhaps into the mid-20s early Monday, the day spring is due to arrive at 5:43 p.m.
Given the general warmth of winter and the related adventurousness of the region’s plant life, “it’s not a good time to have a deep, hard freeze,” said Ray Martin, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly.
“In a normal year it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Normal year? What might that be?
» READ MORE: Yes, it was quite warm winter
January and February ranked among the warmest winter months on record. In fact, the four days through the first half of March with below-normal temperatures exceeded the total for all of January and February.
Sunday and Monday almost certainly will add to the monthly total.
After a cold start, readings Sunday afternoon are forecast to rise no higher than the low 40s in the city and then plummet early Monday under mostly clear skies with light winds, “ideal” for daytime warmth radiating efficiently into space.
Martin said it could be a rough night for the magnolia blooms, some of which took a hit during a hard freeze at the end of March last year.
“Magnolias that are showing petal color, or out, will likely get nipped,” said Bill Cullina, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Morris Arboretum, in Chestnut Hill, one of the colder spots in the city.
» READ MORE: Come freeze or high water, spring arrives Monday
Cherry blossoms might be vulnerable “if it drops into the lower 20s, though cherries are much more resilient than magnolias,” he said. It is at least possible that temperatures will get the low in the perennial cold spots of Pottstown and Millville, Martin said.
Cullina said those below-normal March days were valuable in that they gave ambitious plants the message to cool it. “We were two weeks ahead going into the month, but now at most a week ahead to almost typical as far as things coming out of dormancy,” he said.
Overall, he said, “most of what is out now should be fine.”