Ok. Maybe this will get it out of my system.
I dug through some old links and came back across the National Weather Service Digital Forecast Tool, which is now listed over on the left as “7 Day Forecast” under “bike resources”. At first I had it set up to kick out a report, but that seems to be a dynamic page that doesn’t like to be referenced by a link. Hence, the link that doesn’t get all 404 on you ends up on the “Create A Report” page.
For the upcoming SF Randonneurs 200K, I have been using the “TABLE” style, of “7 DAY” with “6 HOUR” increments. Just to play around, I’ve been plugging “Point Reyes Station” as the city, as that seems like a decent enough central location. Press the go button and there’s a ton of data to obsess and fret over.
For those of you playing along at home, that number is - http://ifps.wrh.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/dwf?siteID=MTR
Just to make it clear I’m keeping all this weather-stuff in perspective, you oughta go read Kent’s and Tarik’s recent posts. These people actually live where there’s real weather. By comparison, I’m playing along with my own “Little Weatherman” kit.
Nevertheless…
The evening ritual of late is to keep the more delicate growing things protected, and so I’ve dug out the rags-to-be, some errant shade cloth and a sheet to protect the fruit tree and the more exposed cymbidiums.
Two mornings ago, the frost had set in a pretty cool pattern on an old cotton turtleneck covering the lemon tree. As I am easily amused by visual stimuli, it is herewith shown:
(there’s a big version)
The cool thing to me (keeping in mind that I’m easily amused) is that it looks like a really digitized shadow fade. But, that’s the way the different thicknesses of frost set up.
Last night it got down to 28, which is pretty much when plants like that start to walk into the grow light. This shot was from Sunday AM, when it was nudging 30 on the high/low thermometer on the back porch.
A few of the smaller orchids on the bench above this have blackened at the tips. I could bring them in, but when I tried that before, the shock of the house temps seemed to do more damage. So, once things get closer to spring, I’ll trim away the dead bits and perform whatever triage steps are necessary.
But, it does have it’s purty side as well - kind of a west coast Mary Poppins chimneysweep scene couple of views - 
(the second shot has a bigger version)
Of course, that did mean that even after the sun came up for real, there were still frozen bits to be found on the ride.