First frost of the season comes early to parts of Westman

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This article was published 06/09/2018 (2050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Areas of Westman have been hit with the first frost of the season.

“This year, it’s a little bit earlier,” said Amir Farooq, farm production extension specialist for Manitoba Agriculture. “It’s not bad. We have already most of our crops close to maturity.”

Farooq said there was frost reported on both Monday and Wednesday evenings, with areas north of the Trans-Canada Highway facing an especially high risk of exposure.

Municipalities including Hamiota, Rivers, Newdale and Oak River hovered around freezing to -4 C, creating low enough temperatures for frost.

Farooq said for the past three or four years, frost has tended to make its first appearance in Westman after approximately Sept. 15-20.

The timing of the frost is late enough to not have a major effect on crops in the region, Farooq said, because more than 90 per cent have reached full maturity.

The only crops facing relative danger from frost are green crops such as soybeans, which take longer to mature, Farooq said. He added that canola and cereal crops were the least likely to be affected by an early frost.

He said that at this point in the year, the frost should have a minimal effect on farmers in the region.

“Most of harvesting is going very smooth,” Farooq said.

Terri Lang, metrologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said that based on the long-term forecast, Westman will likely remain frost-free for the next week to two weeks, with the greatest risk of frost having already passed earlier this week. Even so, she added that the possibility exists for frost to return as early as Sept. 14.

The Westman area’s risk of frost will largely depend on the weather patterns over the next two weeks, said Lang, adding that the perfect recipe for frost — clear skies and no winds combined with an arctic air mass — is unlikely to happen.

She said that the soonest possible frost to hit the entire region could possibly be the weekend of Sept. 15. The average date of the first frost in Westman is Sept. 14, with the probability of a frosty night rising to 90 per cent halfway through the month, Lang said. The earliest-ever recorded frost was on Aug. 14.

“This time of year, the nights are getting longer and the days are getting shorter,” Lang said. “That increases our chances of frost … With Manitoba, anything can happen.”

Cranbrook Gardens owner Janette Ens is eyeing the forecast and preparing for the first frost.

She said they wait for the first frost to hit this time of year, and are focusing on monitoring when the temperature is expected to dip below -3 C.

“It’s chaotic. If you want to save your tomatoes, you either have to cover them or pick them all off,” Ens said, adding that even if she can protect her plants from the first frost, the second one will get them.

“You take all the time to grow it and then if you get an early frost, it can be gone if you don’t realize the frost is coming,” Ens said.

One of the benefits of living in a region as large of Westman, Ens said, is that not all farms will be hit by the first frost at the same time. She said that because facilties are spread out across a large area, some crops will survive a bit longer as the first frost inches closer.

“If it come, it comes,” she said. “You just have to kind of prepare that it’s going to happen.”

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