2011 Weather & Plants - ABQ House

2011 was noticeably drier and slightly warmer cooler than average. With historic cold events, and a few other items a part:

That's about it. But to learn more what I saw and why, read on!

2011 weather statistics:
Growing season = 183 days (20 days less than average, 5/4 - 11/2)
Average temperature = 58.1F (2F warmer than average)
Precipitation = 8.87" (over 2" drier than average; 2" came in Dec.!)
Monsoon season rain = 4.25" (over 2" drier than average, erratic at best)
Sunshine = typically sunny (sorry, can't find stats for entire 2011!)
Warmest = 100F (on 6/24, 6/26, 6/28, 7/9; 102F is average)
Coldest = -11F (on 2/3, possibly the coldest ever; +7F is average)
Highs above 100F = 4 days (typical, but each barely at 100F)
Highs above 90F  = 89 days (20 days above average)
Highs below 32F = 6 days (2 is average, some years having 0)
Lows above 70F = 15 days (above average, but 12 right at 70-71F)
Lows below 32F = 89 days (20 days below average; more wind, clouds)
Lows below 10F = 8 days (we typically get 1 brief low this cold)
Lows below 0F = 2 days (wow! - we average decades without below 0F)

I almost forgot about smoke from massive regional wildfires during June and July, following smaller fires just 3-4 miles N of me.

Robert Heinlein has been quoted as saying, "climate is what you expect, but weather is what you get".

Those skilled in horticulture and who think for themselves, strive to use plants and landscape choices that thrive in both scenarios on their site and soils - climate and typical weather extremes. But that's another post!

Think of 2011 and many recent years as balancing out previous warmer years. And the cycle goes on and on! 

Some who watch the propaganda mass media, who listen to primadonnas "experts", or who think Abq is like Santa Fe, Taos or Denver, may be surprised. They have been all 20 years I've lived here.




















And they use aspens, bluegrass, and mountain perennials in toasty Abq. Odd. Water and microclimate are no more a cure for forcing cold-climate plants into our gardens, than logic is a cure for willing ignorance.

My locale's averages, long-term and short-term statistics, are found on this blog's right column. They adapt the Sunport's daily readings and 97 years of records, to what I know about my terrain, elevation, etc.

What surprised me is how the Sunport and I had such radically different temperatures - 5F warmer than me. My local National Weather Service office at the ABQ Sunport reported their 9th warmest year on record at an annual average of 58.4F...that's only 1.2F warmer than averages, not exactly proof we can plant like Tucson anytime soon. (Tucson is 12F warmer than that...and for many decades) I triple double-checked my spreadsheet where my temperatures were tracked, and I found no the errors, either. Corrected!

The location those weather records are taken is less than 400' lower in elevation and 8 miles straight down the arroyo from me, accounting for less than 1F in difference - the same as in the 75 miles from Albuquerque to Socorro. One can visit the National Weather Service / Albuquerque website, or other locales' NWS sites, and find their annual summary. That informs what happened in the garden and landscape.

Meanwhile, some in my city and nearby seem to really be scratching their heads, wondering how to adapt our landscapes to "global warming". A few I know here even planned group-meets last winter.

Those folks first need to specify designs and plantings for our present climate of the last 100 years, since they are working off far too cold and wet a starting point. Then, they might have less change to "sweat over".

I'll continue discussing this complex issue of natural and manmade, dynamic climate shifts with those more knowing than I, as I continue to learn more and ditch old ideas, and relay it on this blog.

We need to move radically deeper than pretty pictures or fads, in light of having more radically relevant horticulture.

Plant performance summary:
+ trees - later than typical leaf-out for some, others typical
+ shrubs - on-time adn a few slightly late; some regrowth of new twigs
+ accents - on-time; some major freeze and drought damage, on some
+ perennials (herbaceous) - on-time leaf-out, flowering
+ flowering - weak to sporadic, some delayed until October
+ freeze damage - cleaned up much from last winter into August
+ drought - some plants declined further by August
+ insects - unusually few most of year, except wasps in fall

Habitual eastern trees were even late, many desert trees were quite late, in leaf-out or flowering. But this spring settled down earlier than recent ones, where plants waited until a month or more late to respond - a few springs saw a more settled spring pattern not arriving until June. In 2011, it was May; that mattered not if one had no fruit, though. Some apples were frozen in early May, but in February, figs and pomegranates mostly froze to the ground, and many apricots, peaches, and other fruit trees lost flowering buds for last year to develop fruit.

In the coldest areas (here and Alamogordo at -15 to -11F, areas between Socorro and Belen at -24F to -13F), some trees and shrubs had to regrow leaf buds, as the old ones were frozen. Other woody plants froze to the roots or died outright, like miles of Creosote Bush near San Acacia.

Yet others, including of warmer desert origins, were unscathed.

Accents and succulents were hit hard; many species that hold much water in stems were the worst, such as larger agaves (A. americana, A. scabra), even some Opuntia, and most Ferocactus. Nolina, most Dasylirion, and Hesperaloe were just fine. More on this later!

The various desert wildflowers in my landscape and in nearby gardens and the wild were more stunted and sparse in bloom, than they were late or early. With a weak monsoon season and a dry winter to spring, fall saw some plants that bloomed forth, and grew quite a bit. October and November where I live looked far more verdant and colorful than any time between March through September. And without early or late summer heat to shorten spring and fall flowering or growth, that really says how dry it has been!

Plant responses in my region also correlated greatly to 2011's weather.