Spring arriving earlier each year

After one of the warmest winters ever recorded in Columbia, it’s no wonder that we saw an early growing season as we neared into the spring months. With the official start to spring having occurred yesterday, we continued that record warmth, as highs climbed into the mid 80s, a record for the day. Take the early growing season and combine it with a warm start to 2017 and you get the arrival of spring earlier. The National Phenology Network, an organization that studies the effects that climate has on the life cycle of plants, says that spring conditions have been occurring in Mid-Missouri nearly three weeks ahead of schedule. Of course, this can already be seen by stepping outside and seeing the dogwood trees in full bloom and many wildflowers sprouting. For most of February and part of March, the growing season got an early start across Mid-Missouri, only to be met with a hard freeze that dropped the temperatures into the teens. This hard freeze killed any growth that did occur. With an early start to spring, when can one expect to see the threat for cold weather to decrease? The average last freeze for Mid-Missouri varies from April 10-15, with extreme southern portions of Phelps and Pulaski counties seeing theirs by April 20. This means that we are just three weeks away from the recommended earliest time to start planting. There is good news for Mid-Missouri, as long-term models are beginning to hint that we likely won’t see another freeze until the fall season. This isn’t out of the ordinary, as the earliest last freeze ever recorded was March 10, 1929, and the latest freeze occurred May 9, 1906. There’s still a window that we could see another freeze in Mid-Missouri, but it’s not looking likely. If the growing season where to not meet another freeze this year, then our last freeze would be March 16, which would be the second earliest last freeze ever recorded.