Temperatures may dip into the high 20’s Thursday night so be sure to protect susceptible plants. We may see a low of 31 degrees F Wednesday night so the sooner you get your plants covered the better! Gardening cloth or old sheets can be used for coverings. If you have fruit trees with thin trunks, covering the trunks with foam tubes will insulate them. Also, be sure to run your sprinklers through freezing temperatures for plants you cannot cover.
Michigan State University explains, “When you use sprinklers to prevent freezing injury, you are using the energy that water releases when it freezes, and changes from a liquid to a solid, to keep the temperature in the ice right at the freezing point, 32 degrees F. As long as you keep the ice wet, the ice temperature will stay at 32 degrees F. If the ice dries out and water starts to evaporate from the ice, the ice will get colder than the air temperature as it evaporates.”
Hernando County Weather Watches/Warnings/Advisories:
• Freeze warning tonight from 1 a.m. until 9 a.m. Thursday morning.
• Wind chill advisory from 10 p.m. until 10 a.m. Thursday morning.
• Small Craft Advisory in effect today through Thursday for the near and offshore Gulf waters out 60nm.
• Hard Freeze Watch late Thursday night through early Friday morning.