Climate Clash: Houston, TX (29°N) vs Ningbo, China (29°N) (hot, warmest)
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And a fine thing too. A place's climate can be judged by the vegetation.
what better way to learn about a climate than study the living inhabitants of the climate? plants are most often used because they don't have legs so they are stuck where they were born! if there is an established colony of a particular plant species and you know the limits of what that plant can endure, it can tell more about a climate than decades of writing down numbers. i like to think of plants as little green data points on a map. account for all of them and you have the boundaries of entire climate zones.
Last edited by Sir Goosenseresworthie; 12-27-2015 at 03:11 PM..
what better way to learn about a climate than study the living inhabitants of the climate? plants are most often used because they don't have legs so they are stuck where they were born! if there is an established colony of a particular plant species and you know the limits of what that plant can endure, it can tell more about a climate than decades of writing down numbers. i like to think of plants as little green data points on a map. account for all of them and you have the boundaries of entire climate zones.
Good points. The classification of an area provides a lot less context than a photo of vegetation can provide.
Photos are good, because they show what can survive and how well it is surviving. I look for other clues as well, particularly those the indicate the level of cool season growth.
wut. yes the cold they do get is bad, in fact worse than anything you would see in China at equivalent latitudes and elevation. the difference being the frequency is low. both locations have the same exact hardiness zone even though Houston has a 13°F lead in average mean temperatures during the winter months. that is sad. US South is the devil's subtropical... at least China you know it gonna be chilly, but it never gets worse than chilly.
not saying Houston is a bad climate or anything. i understand the appeal for thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies that love to see plants suffer. but in terms of tropicalness, US South is pure evil. it gives you confidence with retardedly warm el nino december, Miami in Atlanta. then a few weeks later bam its Detroit in Jacksonville.
To me it isn't that bad. But this is coming from someone who only lived in Atl and NYC. I been all over the US and I'm a weather geek, and from what I seen in forecasts and what I experienced in Houston to me it just isn't that bad. But if you ask me about Atlanta...yeah I would say of colder than most people think. Too cold in fact! Yeah Jax area gets cold, Houston gets a bit colder but still in my opinion its tolerable. I do know if I moved to Gulf Coast region or North Florida I'm not escaping winter entirely(80-90% I am though) but in what I lived in all my life, it's definitely warm enough. Trust me, despite being closer to Jax, Atl is a very close to NYC weather wise minus the snow. Even than its not like NYC is Buffalo anyway.
It is related to weather, and perfectly explains what happens in North America almost every winter.
It is, but it's like beating a dead horse, we all know the U.S. South is exposed to the Arctic, it's on nearly every page in every thread involving the South.
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The reason the US South looks like PA in winter is because of the winter ups and downs. Plants hate that. And yes, the inland south looks more dead in winter than even southeast PA or southern NJ. Of course, the tiny sliver along the coastline is more green in winter.
You're right that plants hate rapid temperature fluctuations, but I don't know if that's the reason the U.S. South has an abundance of deciduous trees, deciduous Oaks can be found as far south as Guatemala. And I've seen no evidence to support the idea that deciduous trees are better at handling drastic temperature changes than coniferous trees or broadleaf evergreens. In November of 2014, after a warm fall the temperature in Denver plummeted from near 60F to the teens and it killed tens of thousands of trees, both evergreen and deciduous.
If the U.S. South was as hyper-continental as it's often depicted here, the native plant palette would be entirely different, or it wouldn't have trees at all.
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Originally Posted by tom77falcons
Lol you and I feel the exact same way. If you frequent any gardening sites in the US, the unanimous common refrain in the South is something like "please no arctic cold this year" or some such worry and fretting about what kind of anomalies are going to happen. This takes place every single winter. I ask where else on earth and at the latitudes and elevation of the US South does this kind of fretting and worrying how cold it will get take place?
Nowhere is the answer. And that is because of the bizarre anomalies that go so far south in North America compared to everywhere else.
Those sites are filled with "zone pushers" and those growing marginal plants that aren't long term reliable, this isn't exclusive to the U.S.
The look is similar- there's plenty of swamp in this area, with a similar look as well., but I suspect the species are very different.
The two photos highlight the need for relevant knowledge, but doesn't change the fact, that vegetation will reveal all.
Yes, I'm not disputing that. The OP insists that I should want to live in a boring climate based on the fact that he planted a coconut palm in northern Florida and it died. So what? Getting to experience a variety of temperatures is more important to me than the plant hardiness.
Ningbo is closer to Atlanta's (~34N) climate with some pretty cool winters. In fact, the highs for much of the year are cooler than Atlanta but it's pretty humid with warmer nights. Very interesting.
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