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Bummer crop: Warm temperatures worry farmers

Tim Henley’s peach crop at Henley’s Orchard was already threatened before the latest cold blast and snow. Rammelkamp Foto

Last month was the warmest February on record with an average temperature of 47.7 degrees, based on numbers from the McCormick Observatory dating back to the 19th century. While many are happy to ditch their winter coats early, a nice day this early in the season is a nightmare for some farmers.

“It’s really going to affect us badly,” Tim Henley, owner of Henley’s Orchard in Crozet, said last week. “I’m expecting this next cold blast is pretty much going to wipe out all of our peaches.”

On Henley’s 1,000 acres of farmland, 25 acres are reserved for growing 35 varieties of apples (including fan favorites such as Albemarle Pippin and Black Twig), and 18 acres are reserved for more than a dozen types of white and yellow peaches. With recent warm temperatures pushing 80 degrees, a majority of the buds in the peach reserve at Henley’s have already bloomed, or at least swollen to a fragile state. Cool temperatures, even just at night, could kill them for the whole season.

And it’s happened before. During a good year, Henley says he and his team produce between 4,000 and 5,000 bushels of the pitted fruit. Last year, due to similar conditions, they had none.

“It’s fairly depressing,” he says. “We just try to be optimistic. We’ll probably get a lot more apple trees pruned this year than usual,” he adds, because they likely won’t have to spend time thinning peach crops.

Over at Bellair Farm, an 850-acre plot 11 miles south of downtown Charlottesville, the warm weather isn’t all bad news.

Farm manager Jamie Barrett says he usually starts selling community supported agriculture shares in mid-May, but if temperatures continue to stay up, he may be able to start earlier. Because he grows mostly annual vegetables, (think: eggplant planted seasonally, not apples yielding from the same trees each year), warmer weather means an opportunity to get out into the fields earlier to prep for the growing season.

“We can get things in the ground a little earlier,” he says. “For us, there are certain crops like strawberries we worry about. And our garlic is taller than usual this time of year. A hard frost might knock that back.”

Barrett planted his strawberries last spring because they take a year to bear fruit.

“We should expect that to start in May or June and we’ll begin picking at that time,” he says. “If they start blooming now, and it gets real cold at night, we’re going to lose those blossoms and lose our strawberry crop. It’s always something we worry about. It’s just getting harder and harder to manage things with the weather being so volatile.”

And though most of the Bellair crops will be okay, he sympathizes with the orchards that are getting hit.

“The peaches and the apples are not coming in like they’re used to. It all comes back to the weather now,” Barrett says. “It’s great if people can have that in mind and really support those local businesses when they need it.”

Jerry Stenger, the director of the climatology office at the University of Virginia, doesn’t have good news for the farmers hoping to ward off a frost. In fact, he says the worst is yet to come.

Through the end of February, the area had seen only 2.9 inches of snowfall, when an average for that time period is more than a foot—about 14 inches. The snow that started March 13 added less than an inch to the season’s accumulation.

“We’re not anywhere near free of the snowfall season,” he says. “This time of year, chances of getting more measurable snow are about 50-50. This is not too bizarre and it’s not unexpected that we’ll have some more snow coming along.”

Stenger points to early March 2013, when 15.5 inches of snow were dumped on the city.

But it won’t be too much longer before we’re in the clear, he says. “Now by the time we get to April, the chances of any decent snowfall are really diminished.”

Feverish February

Is it time to break out the shorts and tank tops? Information gathered from UVA’s McCormick Observatory ranks last month as the hottest February on record.

  • February 2017: 47.7 degrees on average
  • Average February temperature: 39.1 degrees
  • Winter snowfall through end of February: 2.9 inches
  • Average winter snowfall through end of February: 14 inches
  • February 2017 seventh driest on record: .78 inches of precipitation
  • Average February precipitation: 3.07 inches of precipitation

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City cites 90 for not shoveling sidewalks

There were still plenty of unshoveled sidewalks 24 hours after the January 25 deadline, like this one on West Main in front of the bus station. Staff photo

It was pretty challenging being a pedestrian after winter storm Jonas dumped more than 15 inches on Charlottesville. City code requires that sidewalks be cleared within 24 hours after the snow stops. Once City Manager Maurice Jones declared the storm officially over the evening of Saturday, January 23, citizens received a slight reprieve because it was a weekend and they had until 8am Monday, January 25, to shovel sidewalks around their properties.

Many didn’t get that memo.

As of February 1—one week after the deadline—the city had issued 90 citations to those who hadn’t cleared their walks, and the citations were made after residents received a notice saying they had 24 hours to remove the snow or the city would do it—and bill them for the cost.

Is it possible residents just didn’t know? “We posted it pretty aggressively in the news and on our website,” says city spokesperson Miriam Dickler. Every issue of City Notes that goes out with monthly utility bills includes a reminder, she says, and the city used Facebook and Twitter as well to get the word out.

“We try to get in front of people as much as we can,” says Dickler.

She says citizens who are physically unable to shovel can notify Neighborhood Development Services to avoid being cited. And she says some neighborhood associations work with volunteers like the Boy Scouts to help shovel for those who can’t. This past storm, UVA architecture students wanted to help and were put in touch with the president of the 10th and Page streets neighborhood association, she says.

“Most years almost everyone shovels their sidewalks,” she says. “It’s great that residents recognize it’s about public safety.”

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Eighteen inches of snow possible by Saturday

Trees could look something like this from snow starting Friday, File photo

The snow flurries predicted for Wednesday are “small potatoes compared to what’s coming,” says Jerry Stenger, director of the State Climatology Office. Snow starting early Friday and continuing thought Saturday evening could bring an accumulation of more than a foot and up to 18 inches, he says.

A low pressure system developing in Louisiana and tracking to the northeast is going to bring moisture into the cold air that’s well entrenched here, says Stenger. “Whatever moisture we get will be in the form of snow,” he says.

Stenger says a light snow will begin “in the wee hours Friday morning,” increase in intensity with heavy snowfall by Friday evening, taper off and likely end sometime Saturday evening.

“It’s probably not going to be a light fluffy snow,” he warns. “It will probably be a wet snow.” And that means it will stick to already cold tree surfaces, increasing the likelihood of downing tree branches. Drooping trees and falling branches will be “clobbering power lines,” he predicts.

The past few years have had above average snowfall. Last winter saw 22.3 inches, and the winter of 2013-2014 brought 37.3 inches, the 16th highest snowfall out of 123 years of record keeping at McCormick Observatory, says Stenger. But that doesn’t touch the Snowpocalyptic winter of 2009-2010 with its record 56.8 inches. After that, “a lot of us have come to thumb our noses at 20 to 30 inches,” says Stenger.

Weather professional Stenger says he keeps plenty of food at his house, and he’ll spend a snow day sitting at his computer, looking at data and fielding media calls. For the rest of us, he suggests, “It may not be a bad day to stay at home.”

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McAuliffe warns of worst case scenario

A photo of Hurricane Joaquin pulled from around 1pm on October 1. Photo courtesy of NASA

On September 30, well in advance of Hurricane Joaquin, Governor Terry McAuliffe declared Virginia in a state of emergency. In a teleconference October 1, McAuliffe and other Virginia safety officials said everyone in the commonwealth can expect between 4 and 10 inches of rainfall, whether or not Joaquin turns east and heads out into the ocean.

A severe rainstorm was expected to hit on the night of October 1 and is being monitored separately from the potential hurricane. The storm alone has officials suggesting that, instead of the originally recommended three days worth of supplies, people across the commonwealth prepare for longer-term power outages, which could last several weeks.

“This one is definitely going to hit us,” McAuliffe says.

He and other officials, including Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Brian Moran, Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne and Virginia Emergency Management Coordinator Jeff Stern, say Virginia residents should not travel if they can avoid it.

Allison Farole, local assistant emergency coordinator, says 3 to 4 inches of rain are expected in this area, but in a worst case scenario, residents should prepare for a power outage lasting 5 to 7 days. She says the storm will continue through October 6. No evacuations are expected.