Claire Robb of C&R Farms in Palisade is preparing to bring out her heaters and wind machines to protect the 120 acres of orchards the farm has in peaches and other fruit trees from what could be a killing freeze Monday night.
“Just about everything’s in full bloom, maybe some of the apples haven’t bloomed. Monday night is supposed to be the cold night. Right now, it’s sunny, and that’s warming up the ground. So I think we’ll be all right tonight,” Robb said on Sunday.
The National Weather Service in Grand Junction has issued a freeze warning covering the Animas, San Juan, and Dolores, river basins. The freeze warning also includes the Grand Valley, where C&R Farms and a host of other of Colorado’s prize peach orchards are located.
The freeze warning in mid-April is not unusual for Colorado, with lows expected to dip to 20 in Durango and 21 in Cortez on Monday night, but the low temperature predicted for Palisade of 26 degrees would be a problem if it pans out.
The low temperatures endanger the valley’s peach crop estimated to be $28.14 million in 2018 by U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“We’re preparing to get out the wind machines, and we have some heaters, and we’re saying our prayers,” Robb said Sunday about the two nights of expected below-freezing temperatures predicted for the Grand Valley by the weather service.
The magic number for Robb is 28 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Below 28 degrees we get a 10% kill rate every 20 minutes it’s below that. I’m going to be an optimist and say we don’t get that,” Robb said.
The low temperatures for Durango are expected to be 26 degrees Sunday night and 27 degrees in Cortez. Palisade is expected to dip to 30 degrees Sunday night, two degrees above Robb’s “magic number.”
The cold front not expected to bring much precipitation to lower valleys in Southwest Colorado other than a slight chance of an isolated shower.
Silverton could receive between 2 to 4 inches of snow from the storm from Sunday morning into Monday, according to Tom Renwick, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
The cold front has moved south from Canada and is affecting almost the entire country, Renwick said. Colorado is on the western side of the storm, which means the storm is bringing cold air from Canada straight south. It’s that pattern that has Robb worried about her peaches and other fruit trees.
The storm is expected to add only slightly to Southwest Colorado’s snowpack, which is listed at 87% of the 30-year average as of Friday by Colorado SNOTEL.
parmijo@durangoherald.com