by K. Hansen, March 4, 2024 in WUWT
Several times I have had readers at WUWT ask in comments: “If the climate is changing, why haven’t the planting zone maps changed?”
Well, they have and they do. The U.S. Department of Agriculture issues a new U.S.D.A. “Plant Hardiness Zone Map” periodically. A new version of the map was just released on Nov. 15, 2023. I became aware of it because my wife is an avid gardener and follows our local agricultural County Cooperative Extension news.
When she followed the link to the new Plant Hardiness map and checked our very local area, she was surprised to see that it had “warmed” here by 5°F. Here is the bit of the page she was looking at:
She was a bit perplexed by this news, as we have been having not “hot” years but cooler years recently. It took me a minute to sort through it to see that the drop down was not clear on what temperature change they were talking about. That temperature change elevated us one half a zone from zone 5b to zone 6a.
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