Oak Hill, WV (WOAY-TV): Temperatures bottomed out on the chilly side this morning, but what are the protocols to officially end the growing season?
Blacksburg, Va., National Weather Service Meteorologist Ben Gruver indicates his team reviews low temperatures across the counties that the frost and frost advisories and freeze warnings are where they’re in effect. “We’ll determine if 50% or more of the county so at or below freezing temperatures. Then, when we’ve determined that, we can usually safely say that the growing season is done for those counties.”
If we have a persistent warm pattern in the mid to late fall season when the average hard frost typically occurs. What is the protocol for when to discontinue the issuance of frost and freeze alerts for the year?
Yes, we do coordination with the agriculture extension offices as well as our neighboring weather service offices. We then determine dates for certain areas so that if freezing temperatures are not experienced by November 1 for the Greenbrier Valley counties, the growing season is over and cold weather alerts are no longer needed.
Chief Meteorologist Chad Merrill has a warming trend in the forecast this week! Here’s the latest:
