By Jessie Burchette
jburchette@salisburypost.com
The arrival of freezing temperatures earlier this week was right on time.
Most residents, used to balmy temperatures, may have considered icy windshields, and white rooftops a surprise.
Darrell Blackwelder, horticulturist with the Rowan County Cooperative Extension Service, said the arrival of frost was on schedule.
The average frost date for Rowan is in the third week of October.
And on schedule, the thermometer at the Piedmont Research Station dropped to 29.8 degrees early Monday morning.
Blackwelder said the frost was a bit harder than some of the first frosts in recent years.
“For homeowners, it’s a big deal. It can damage plants even if doesn’t freeze. … They are tender to cold,” Blackwelder said.
The heavy frost probably put an end to remaining vegetables in the garden, other than cole crops.
Blackwelder advised anyone with sweet potatoes to go ahead and dig them immediately.
Overall, the frosts will likely be a help to farmers waiting to harvest soybeans and some other crops.
Blackwelder said that, technically, the 30 degrees doesn’t qualify as a hard freeze. That happens at 28 degrees.
Frost and freeze dates have ranged from early October to mid-November.
In addition to keeping records of temperatures, the Piedmont Research Station on Sherrills Ford Road also tracks rainfall. And the rainfall totals are looking decidedly better.
Rainfall through September totaled 36.05 inches, up from 32.95 inches for the same period in 2008.
Dan McGovern, administrative assistant at the research station, said it’s a return to near-normal rainfall.
The 33 inches this year is almost 16 inches above the rainfall in 2007 when the area was in the midst of a drought.