We are certainly wetter now than we probably have been in a few years at this time of year. After starting 2024 in a drought we have rebounded on moisture. I have tracked rainfall for CoCoRaHS personally and also tracked rainfall at the Baebler Educational Farm at our weather station. I have 59.15” and the Baebler Farm had 58.58” of rain in total for 2024. Unfortunately, I don’t have a full year of data from 2023 to use as a direct comparison. I do have weather station data from the Baebler Farm from May 1, 2023 to the end of that year and we only had 15” of rain for those 8 months. It was not that wet before that either. 2025 has started off with 3.52” of precipitation with a decent amount of that coming to us in a frozen form.
It feels now like we are starting to turn the corner from winter to spring at least for now. This winter season has actually felt more normal and “winterlike” than many winters in recent memory. Other than one random day in February that made it to 70°, we have generally stayed mainly in the 40s and 50s or below. We had a few subfreezing stretches, getting down to about 0 at the coldest I observed. We have had some sleet and snow, some of which lingered for a while. Overall, we just have not had some of the rollercoaster temperatures that many winters have given us which certainly have been problematic for dormant fruit crops in other years. The third week of February we struggled to make it up to 30° by the end of the week but the last week of February temperatures are supposed to hardly be below 30°! The forecast has the last week of February fairly dry, sunny, and temperatures starting in the 50s for highs and maybe near 70° by the end of the week.
High tunnel crops have endured fairly well with some protection during the cold. Lettuce and greens were pretty slow to grow for a while, but with some sun they will be pushing growth quickly! Pruning and clean up of perennial crops is starting to take off. There have been a lot of days that haven’t been the most pleasant to do field work earlier in the winter. Of course now that things have thawed the mud is something to contend with for any field work. It will be a while before any early spring tillage happens, but with some warmer temperatures and sun in the forecast we hopefully will be headed in the right direction!