Is tonight the night?

[Penellype]

The weather looks to be settled warm (although with possible thunderstorms) until around 13th May, after which uncertainty creeps in with some of the model runs going quite cold.

The reality is that the actual weather pattern has not changed that much since we had the cold spell at the end of April. All that has happened is that the position of the loop in the jet stream has moved a little so that instead of sucking winds down from the pole we are now sucking them up from Spain. There is no real reason why the jet stream shouldn't move again and put us back in the northerly flow, and in fact some of this morning's model runs (including the operational run which is what a lot of the forecasting sites use for their data) show this happening in the 2nd half of May.

While we are unlikely to see a return to the depth of cold we saw a week or so ago, the risk of frost at night is by no means over, so keep an eye on those forecasts!

[Bigmallly]

Thanks for the heads up Pene.

[Penellype]

Its by no means a certainty - I'd give it about 50:50 at present, but todays charts show more of a risk of significantly colder weather than yesterday's did.

[Thelma Sanders]

I saw that as well *not again*

To cap it all last night MetO forecast overnight of 12C but was actually 6.5C - so can't even trust the forecast for the same day *grump grump*

[veggiechicken]

Met Office mistakenly issues snow warning - on hottest day - BBC News

[Thelma Sanders]

Doh! and they get paid? Hmph

[vixylix]

Did you do it Dave? Mine are out tonight for the first time. Eek!

Pene - no offence but I hope you (and they) are wrong

[BUFFS]

toms are in unheated gh border for past 2-3weeks, in flower now but no more than about a foot tall, sweet peppers, chillies cucumbers, courgettes are planted into 10ins pots and sitting in back greenhouse, apricots and peaches fruiting in there and outside fig with about 25-30 young fruit on its branches. I grow nothing with any heat except the initial week, then the seeds and plants have to look after themselves, that said, when we hear of high forecasts we know it wont be us, so we ignore them, and largely do the same with the low forecasts...yesterday forecast was fairly "poor", I finally got round to putting up a new support system for the tall blackcurrants and I had to take a jumper and shirt off and even the t shirt was warm working in. I put my onion sets in in march and now they are about 12ins tall (average) and growing away nicely, so I just please myself and rarely have big problems ,except last summer, when that season did not even arrive, fruit rotting on the plant due to the constant cold and 3 crops never even germinated after 3 separate attempts, but it cannot be as bad again, can it?.

[AkionTotocha]

Three Roma babies are spending their first night huddled together in the blowaway, and I'm having to resist the urge to check on them. After repotting everything there simply wasn't room for them in the house.. So out they went.

[Dave2072]

Did you do it Dave? Mine are out tonight for the first time. Eek!

Pene - no offence but I hope you (and they) are wrong

Yep, mostly because I was fed up bringing them I every day!

[Thelma Sanders]

I've left my toms and peppers out this evening - fingers crossed, just bought the 2 Aubs in to baby them a bit

[NatalieCooke]

I stuck mine in the greenhouse over night with the heater on Tuesday. They won't be coming back in the house now. I've covered them over with some fleece tonight. I'll stick the heater on if it gets too cold.
I've left the peas & sweetpeas outside for the first time too.

[bramble]

My peas and sweetpeas have been out for ages. With no adverse effects.

[Penellype]

Just to keep people updated, this morning's model runs are starting to agree rather more on what will happen next. 13th May seems to be the tipping point, and unfortunately there has been a significant move towards a change back to northerly winds and much colder conditions. Night temperatures near freezing are starting to appear in the 10 day forecasts.

If you can keep your plants in a state where they can be brought indoors at night, my advice is to do so. If not (and some of my tomatoes are going to be too big to bring in) I advise keeping fleece or bubble wrap to hand.

[Dave2072]

So they've been out a while now and are fine, but it's going down to 6-7 degrees at night at the end of this week. I am away so can't do the indoor/outdoor thing, do I bring them all indooors or do you think they'll be OK?