Public Information Statement
Issued by NWS Upton, NY
Issued by NWS Upton, NY
099 NOUS41 KOKX 021521 PNSOKX CTZ005>012-NJZ002-004-006-103>108-NYZ067>075-078>081-176>179- 032200- Public Information Statement National Weather Service New York NY 1121 AM EDT Wed Oct 2 2024 ...NWS Offices Serving New England and New York Will Continue an Experiment This Fall to Improve Services Related to the Frost-Freeze Program... The Frost-Freeze program of the National Weather Service is designed to alert local growers and gardeners of the potential of a damaging frost or freeze for a given area during the climatologically defined growing season. This allows people to take preventative measures for plants and crops against potential damaging temperatures. When a Frost or Freeze is expected during the growing season, the NWS will issue a Frost Advisory or Freeze Warning respectively. Actions in the Fall can help possibly prolong the growing season for late stage vegetation. Previously, the ending of the issuance of Frost/Freeze headlines for a season was based on the occurrence of a freeze in one weather forecast zone or two weeks after the median first Fall freeze date. This approach was confusing to many users as meteorological conditions often led to a patchwork approach of ending the NWS frost/freeze program across multiple weather forecast zones and NWS offices. The NWS forecast offices serving New England and New York (Burlington VT, Gray ME, Caribou ME, Boston/Norton MA, Albany NY, Buffalo NY, Binghamton, NY, and New York, NY) will continue to conduct an experimental program service during this fall season 2024. The purpose of this experimental program is to streamline the Frost/Freeze program for simplified customer usability. Just like last year, this experiment means that fall Frost/Freeze headlines will be issued up to 10 days beyond the median date of the first freeze. This corresponds to the 75th to 90th percentile of the first freeze date, established by using 30 year temperature averages. The following are the climatologically defined areas and their respective 75th to 90th percentile of a first fall freeze, after which Frost/Freeze headlines will no longer be issued. November 1st: Interior Southern Connecticut, Lower Hudson Valley, Interior NE New Jersey. November 11th: Suffolk, Northern Nassau, and Southern Westchester Counties, Coastal Connecticut, and Eastern Bergen, Essex, and Union counties November 21st: New York City, Southern Nassau County and Hudson County A detailed handout with Median Last Spring and First fall freeze climatology can be found at: https://www.weather.gov/media/okx/FrostFreeze/OKX_Frost_Freeze_24_han dout.pdf If you have any questions or comments on this experiment, please reach out to Nelson Vaz, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at nelson.vaz@noaa.gov $$