Signs of "global warming" in your backyard !?

[Catchawave]

Subtle, but noticeable in mine (SE VA):

Purple Martins are arriving earlier and leaving earlier?

Robins are hanging around all winter?

My oleander has not died back in 8 years?

Annuals won't die in their baskets, they re-sprout in the spring.

Boxwoods and hollies are dying back, I think they need hard freezes, and we haven't been in the 'teens in several winters.

Bugs I have never seen before!

Baby ducks start hatching in March, not April.

I think I'm a borderline zone 7/8 on the garden maps, some northern plants/migratory birds do try to exist here...but I think my number one suspicion that my area is ready to jump to borderline zone 8/9....Palm trees are surviving winters now!

Just wondering.....:hi:

[NewWaveChick1981]

1. Sounds like the Twilight Zone to me...

...:P We have had a multi-year drought around here, and we're way down on rainfall totals, but stuff still manages to stay green longer. It's not as bad as some of the drought areas in the country, but it's bad enough.

Our azaleas bloomed earlier than ever this year and stayed pretty for about a month longer than usual.

[Catchawave]

2. Yep, a twilight zone indeed....

I miss the occasional snowy day...enough to be pretty, and melts before one must drive to school/work !

[NewWaveChick1981]

3. Come to think of it, that's how things are here too...

I'm in NC. We haven't had snow to speak of in a couple of years. In the late 80s and prior, we used to have regular snowstorms...some amounted to a lot, some just melted away.

[smitty]

12. Are you in North Carolina?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. It's a hundred and fucking six degrees.

Anecdotal absolute proof.

[NewWaveChick1981]

6. On the Weather Channel, they reported that Death Valley

got up to 125 freakin' degrees on (I think) Friday! :yoiks: Definitely proof.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Yeah, well that's Death Valley.

I'm in the Willamette Valley.

[LeftyMom]

5. We have a lot of bugs I've never seen before

It's much more humid than the usual summers here, and our rains were later. As a result we have had multiple blooms on the gardenias and the bluegrass hasn't gone brown and dormant as it normally does in the summer.

I have no idea if that's just a few years odd weather or global warming.

[Catchawave]

8. Yes gardenias bloom longer now....

and I have two bloomings from the 'mums. One in June, just cut them back, and will bloom again (hopefully) early fall. I don't remember that ever happening, they were always a fall flower, and they're about 4 feet tall!

Oh, and that cute little vermin, the nutria, is moving into our local canals, wondering if manatees can be far behind :)

[Squatch]

9. I've got about 4 inches of standing water in my backyard.

Thanks to the storms innundating SEVA.

[Catchawave]

16. If it doesn't subside by 2007....

yep, Global Warning :p:

[sarge43]

10. Central NH

Everything (flora and fauna) arrived at least a week early this year. Same here with the robins, used to show up for a few days, then leave. This year, many have settled in. This winter the temp made it to subzero for just a few days. This is Zone 4; it's suppose to be subzero at night for most of Jan and Feb.

[smitty]

11. I have a fox den in my back yard. I, not sure if that's a

sign of global warming or my backyard getting overgrown. But it's interesting to watch the kits.

[Catchawave]

17. Yes, fox moving into the 'burbs backyards here too...

probably more about encroaching on their habitat ?

Good luck to you and your fox family. I'm jealous, I have very a very special duck famiy though, mom and 9 ducklings, now at 2 months old !

[skygazer]

13. When I was growing up

in Vermont in the 70's, there was a ski area not far from us that was open every winter - my older siblings skiied there while I skiied at another place that was not so challenging. Both areas are closed now - they didn't have snowmaking facilities and they no longer get enough snow consistently to justify opening. Same with the little ski tow at the local park which is where all the local kids used to learn to ski. They stopped running it in the late 80's or early 90's because we just didn't get enough snow anymore.

I see it primarily in the snowfall. Sure, there are still some good storms but the snow as a whole seems to come later and melt earlier and it doesn't seem so consistent.

[Catchawave]

18. Snow's been a great indicator

especially the lack of ? Unfortunately, snow making companies are making a killing on snow challenged ski resorts !? There's no global warming for those industries...snork.

[hatredisnotavalue]

14. I live in central Maine

And we are lucky to have a white Christmas. For the past eight years, it has usually been just a dusting.

The deciduous trees are overtaking the pines. Apples and birch are pushing out the spruce and firs.

I used less than 3 gallons a day of oil last January to heat the house. Given that we do heat with wood, ....but still our hot water comes off of the furnace.

The peepers are out in May, (always mid-June) and very few of the frogs survive.

We have the most frightening thunderstorms now. Something out of the Day After Tomorrow.

Robins are here all year round.

My skin allergies are terrible. And I never was allergic to anything until about 16 years ago, at age 32.. My allergist says that this is unusual given that people either have them at a young age and outgrow or have them at an early age and have them for life. The allergies get worse each year.

Maine now has a pollution index and ratings when it is unsafe to go outside for people with breathing problems. Maine???? This is so unbelievable.

[Catchawave]

19. A dusting at Christmas in Maine !?!

And everything else you mentioned, yes, I'm concerned too.

Thanks for sharing :hi:

[smitty]

15. I live in SE Wisconsin, the past winter we had the warmest

January in over 120 years of record keeping---14 degrees above normal---every day of the month had above normal temperatures. But that's just one month. Ominously, the past four years we have had below normal precipitation and summer last year was especially hot. OTOH, precipitation this year is above normal. Is the dry weather a sign of global warming or just a typical Midwest drought? I'm not sure.

[Catchawave]

20. smitty....hi !

I think the whole country's had a warm winter in '06...but Wisconsin having a warmer than usual January? And previously, a poster from Maine ?

[Ariana Celeste]

21. Same issue with baby ducks and geese in Indiana

I haven't been here long enough to notice these things on my own but my SO has lived here a long time and says that we used to get more snow in the winter. And I don't know if global warming would have anything to do with it, but he told me last year that when he was younger there was a lot more red and orange leaves in the fall, not just the yellow and brown with occasional splatterings of red.

[Catchawave]

22. Fall colors have been blah here for a few years too...

Another sign...from Indiana to Virginia ? Oh "they" blame too much or too little rain, first/last frosts, etc.

[femmocrat]

23. I've noticed the trees get their leaves about two weeks earlier

than they did about 20 years ago. And they start losing them earlier.

We have tons of poison ivy! I never saw it here when I was a kid.

We haven't had a snow day in several years.

[Ptah]

24. I have noticed the dimunition of the glaciers in Glacier National Park

:cry: