Well, here is an interesting dichotomy: The airport here hit a low of -19C (not sure exactly the decimals); while the downtown hit a low of -14C before starting to warm up. That's a 10 degree difference over a distance of 15km or so. Amazing! -19C = -2.2f; -14C = 6.8f.

Kingston (my garden) is currently registering a low of -27C (exact recording at my place has been, generally, a degree lower as it is away from the lake). This equates to -16.6f, a USDA 5a rating. Hope that is the extreme low for the year!

"Current Weather Updated: Mon, Jan. 17, 2011, 6:00 EST - Kingston Airport -27°C". Brrrr.

Paul, so far im officialy 1C warmer then your house in kingston LOL ( well the low was -25.8C)

Paul, so far im officialy 1C warmer then your house in kingston LOL ( well the low was -25.8C)

Unofficially, yes. But officially, no. Thunder Bay Airport: Low to date -27.1C; Kingston Airport: Low to date -27.7C... The Kingston temp. may change as it is verified. Thunder Bay wins by 0.6C!!!

FYI I don't trust my home measurement to be any closer than +/- 2.5C, even though it claims to be 'professional quality'!

This event marks the coldest temperature recorded in Kingston since 2004! December 20, 2004 it hit -28.1C; January 14th 2004 was the last time we were below -30C (recorded a temp of -30.7C at the airport).

Sending you some warm weather.
Doubt you'll appreciate the freezing rain forecast.

Barb

We just got hammered by 15cm of snow, and its still falling.... LOL 2 outta the 3 bamboo that are tarped are buried under the snow now!

those are some cold temps!! I hope spring is around the corner!!

I hear ya dude. I jsut realized the other day, i have a yucca filamentosa unprotected ............

Nice test for the filamentosa.....we'll see how tuff they are!

cold rain, snow, freezing rain, then a flash freeze, then rain, then snow and snow and snow.............. A good test indeed... im e xpecting the roots to survive at least 👿

-8.2C or 17.24F last night. New low for the season.

OK- So now the Toronto stations have corrected their data. Pearson recorded -14.6C (it said -19C yesterday am...) not sure what happened there. And the downtown station recorded -14C... Still hanging in there for a zone 7 winter...

I did some digging in the records available and this deep freeze was pretty localized:

Ottawa, which has some zone 5a microclimate downtown, but not the airport itself hit -25.1C. Kemptville recorded -28.2C, Grenidier I. hit -23.5C (in the St. lawrence river about 300m from downtown Kingston), Point Petre (S. Prince Edward Co., a wine making region) hit -23.1C, Trenton hit -31C, and Bancroft (which might be a zone 3b location) hit -33C. We used to have a poster from Trenton, it is about 1/2 way between Toronto and Kingston along the lakeshore (inland a little)... That's COLD!

It was a bit of a shock to wake up and find most of southern ontario colder then my city ( either of us will never hold a candle to "the peg").

IT is interesting to know how much it varies there. Here, we were s ay -25c ( so says my north facing thermometer), while nipigon, an hour up the lake shore, was -31C or colder. Even JUST outside the city here was below -30 ( the airport is less then a few miles from the city limits, which is why their temps and mine were so different. I find it usless to try to figure temps in my yard from a weather station thats miles and miles away.

Paul do you just go to the weathernetwork and look up the historical data for the days in question??

Jesse, when the apricot trees start blooming in your place? I mean the coldest part of my town got minus 27 this winter but I'm pretty sure the apricots will start blooming there on the end of March. In my place there was minus 23 cold but the apricots will start blooming around the April 10th as well as magnolia stellata. In some areas the super minimum temperature doesn't mean something bad...Toronto winter climate is slightly milder than my town's is but a vegetation here starts 2-3 weeks earlier comparing with the Torontanian one. We are at the same latitude by the way 🙄

To be honest, ive never seen them here (that doesnt mean they arent here, i knwo some grow in calgary, which gets colder then we do generaly (calgarys climate is really compicated). All iris and lilys come up around april, depending on the spring. By may the lilacs are flowering. My fargesia rufa started to shoot around may- mid may.

Its interesting you mentioned apricot, as im actively looking for fruit, so I can germinate the pits, or some trees ( if i start from seed, ill need 2, seeing as i have no idea what the offspring will be like). Unfortunalty apricots were in season in december, and i missed them by a weeek.

Jesse, it is no problem sowing apricot pits. It grows pretty fast. I have an apricot tree grown from the pit that is the same size as a Circassian walnut tree of the same age.