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Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News
Paul Huttner

Record early maple sap run, too early to uncover roses?

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Record early maple sap run

My Deephaven friends and avid maple sap producers Howie and Wendy Bennis got busy early this year tapping the bounty from the neighborhood maple trees.

I asked Wendy how the early season warmth is affecting the maple sap run. Wendy writes back it's the earliest start to the season on record at the sugar shack.

Hi Paul –

Great to hear from you! Yes, it is a very different year this year. We cooked twice this past week – the earliest we have ever fired up the stove in all our years of syruping. Even though this early flow has been strong, with warmer temps upon us, combined with the lack of snow cover, the chatter in the sugar shack is centered around concerns it will be a very short season.

Thanks!

Wendy and Howard

The effort is worth the time. Here's the liquid gold at the end of the rainbow.

Time to uncover those roses? Maybe not just yet

Rushing the season in Minnesota can be risky.

Minnesota rose gardener Jack Falker sends me some good perspective on our winter severity and why it may be premature uncover those tender buds.

If you live in the Upper Midwest, the simple answer is not yet! Here in Minneapolis/St. Paul, we have had a very light winter, courtesy, first, of our well-documented climate-change, which is literally the most extreme in the United States; and second, the ubiquitous El Nino, which made our winter even milder (all the heavy winter weather went south and east). Our extreme minimum temperatures (EMT) this winter occurred on January 17th (-14 f) and 18th, (-13 f), just above the midpoint of USDA zone 5. All of our other night-time lows were in zone 6 or warmer. So, if you live in the Twin Cities and you heavily protected your roses for a zone 4 winter (i.e. the Minnesota Tip), it was sheer overkill, as predicted in my December 11, 2015, Minnesota Rose Gardener blog: "What's Happening to Winter?"

Jack keeps track of our warming Minnesota winters. As Minnesota's climate zones shift, zone 5 and even zone 6 winters are becoming more common.

Enjoy our June preview today.