COLUMBIA, S.C. — Over the next 3 nights temperatures will be dropping below freezing for most of the Midlands. These late-season freezes seem to be rather common lately with 2022 seeing a freeze in March that ended up damaging berry crops. There is some good news though this time around. Our typical last hard freeze occurs around March 1st, but it has been since January 28th we have seen temperatures that cold in the Midlands. Historically, under 4% of March days getting into the 20s hard freezes are pretty hard to come by.
The reason we talk about these cold temperatures so much is that plants are active and are now sensitive to colder weather. Looking at the cells of a plant are normally very rigid and healthy, but when temperatures in the 20s arrive ice can remove water from the cell or even rupture it killing that part of the plant.
Different plants can handle this freezing differently. When it comes to strawberries, temperatures under 30 degrees for several hours could cause some crop loss. Peaches on the other hand need temperatures in the lower 20s to really affect them.
House plants are a different story though, covering them with a cloth blanket will help over the coming nights as this will trap in the well-above-freezing ground temperatures over the nighttime hours protecting any sensitive plants.
As for the long-term forecast ahead, with colder than average weather looking to stick around through potentially the end of the month, we could still see some more freezes ahead.