Associated Press
A car drives past roadside bluebonnets dusted with snow along FM 1237 in Troy, Texas, as a rare spring snow falls on Central Texas Saturday.
Posted on 04/07/2007 6:59:23 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
ATLANTA – It may be two weeks into spring, but it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Cold temperatures in much of the country have those celebrating Easter this weekend swapping out frills, bonnets and sandals for coats, scarves and socks. Baseball fans are huddled in blankets, and instead of spring planting, backyard gardeners are bundling their crops.
The National Weather Service was predicting record lows Sunday for parts of the Southeast and Midwest, and an unseasonably cold weekend for much of the Northeast. Snow was forecast in parts of Ohio, Michigan and New England.
“Our musicians are worried about their fingers,” said the Rev. Michael Bingham, pastor of Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in Columbia, S.C., where Sunday lows were predicted to be in the low 20s. The church's sunrise Easter service usually held in a courtyard will be moved indoors.
In Chicago, kids bundled in winter clothing for an Easter egg hunt at the Glessner House Museum. The high temperature in the city reached just 32 degrees on Saturday – matching a record set in 1936 for lowest high temperature. In early April, the Windy City's average high is 54 degrees.
“It was freezing,” said Clare Schaecher, the museum's education director. “All the little kids had boots on and some of them were trying to wear their spring dresses. It was awful.”
In Morrison, Colo., officials were forced to cancel an annual sunrise service scheduled for Sunday at the Red Rocks Amphitheater because seats and stairways were covered in ice.
In Washington, D.C., visitors to the nation's capital awoke Saturday to see cherry blossoms coated with snow. Snow also fell in metro Atlanta Friday night, and even in parts of West Texas and the Texas Panhandle.
Heavier snow in Ohio postponed Saturday's doubleheader between the Cleveland Indians and Seattle Mariners. The doubleheader had been scheduled because Friday's home opener in Cleveland was postponed.
In Nashville, Tenn., a forecast low of 22 degrees Sunday would beat the current record set on March 24, 1940, when the morning temperature was 24 degrees.
“We're going to be in record territory, for sure,” said Jim Moser, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Nashville.
Farmers were worried about the impact the weather could have on crops. Blueberries could be particularly affected, said Stanley Scarborough, production manager of Sunnyridge Farms, which has fields in Baxley and Homerville, Ga.
Scarborough said the majority of the state's blueberry crop, a variety called rabbit-eye, is normally harvested around June 1. This year, the bushes bloomed early because of a wave of warm temperatures last week. Scarborough the blueberries are not able to withstand freezing temperatures.
“At 26 or 27 degrees, you would probably lose half of the Georgia crop,” valued at about $20 million to $25 million dollars, Scarborough said.
In Alabama, growers scrambled to protect early blooming peach orchards. State Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks said if temperatures stay at 28 to 29 degrees for two hours, there could be “very severe” damage to the crop.
“If we stay there for four hours, we could possibly lose the peach crop,” he said.
A car drives past roadside bluebonnets dusted with snow along FM 1237 in Troy, Texas, as a rare spring snow falls on Central Texas Saturday.
It was snowing in Lawrenceville (outside Atlanta) when my wife left work last night. It hasn’t snowed in Atlanta all winter!
Snow covers tulips blooming in Lafayette Park across from the White House after a rare April snowfall hit the nation's capital in Washington, April 7, 2007. REUTERS/Jim Bourg (UNITED STATES)
25 and snow here.... winter is just not ending in Buffalo this year.
Tell me about it. We had 14” of snow on 4/5 and every morning since has been in the upper teens low twenties up here in NH.
Where the heck is this so-called global warming! Send some up this way Al!!!!
In this photo released by the U.S. Coast Guard, the Coast Guard Cutter Healy breaks ice to support scientific research in the Arctic Ocean near Barrow, Alaska, Saturday, July 22, 2006. Arctic sea ice this winter just missed setting the record for fewest square miles covered since monitoring by satellite began, according to University of Colorado researchers. (AP Photo/U.S. Coast Guard, Prentice Danner)
My SIL said that they had sleet in Conroe, Texas this afternoon!
We live in West Tenn. and it is only one degree above freezing right now.
Damned global warming at it again.
Hope folks are real careful out there , slick roads and all,, winter’s last gasp is at hand.
Global Warming season is over or is it just beginning,, I’m get so confused these days.. ;-)
Happy Easter to you and crew.
Snowball.
A major spring storm dumped over a foot of snow postponing the seasonal baseball opener at Hadlock Field in Portland, Maine, Thursday, April 5, 2007. Workers made a team of snowmen and dressed them up in the team jerseys and caps. Here, the pitcher holds a baseball in a tree branch while the third baseman seems to have melted some and lost his head. (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach)
I’m Dreamin of a White Easter....
It snowed for a while this morning in PA, thick enough to dust the green grass...and then for about five minutes, it was snowing while the sun was shining brightly. You don’t see that every day!
Merry Christmas to You twice this season then. ;-)
I had a good laugh reading the seattle Times this morning.
Perhaps the ludicrous apocalyptic global warming prediction story on the front page of the Seattle Times (Soften climate report rile some scientist), would have been slightly more believable if not for the picture of the Seattle Mariners playing baseball in a snowstorm in the sports section of the same paper.
Happy Easter to you as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.