Weather is highly variable depending on elevation and geographical location. Frost is possible any day of the growing season in certain areas of the PNW, especially those producing seed potatoes. Growers in frost-prone areas are encouraged to keep a close watch on weather forecasts and be prepared to protect their crops with solid-set sprinklers or other means.
Access to dependable weather information is extremely important in managing not only frost protection, but all other cultural and pest control inputs as well. The well-known relationship between weather and late blight infection, for example, has been used in the development of various prevention models such as BLITECAST (Oregon) (see Pest Management for additional info on late blight-weather relationships). Humid, cool weather is especially favorable to late blight development.
Current weather conditions and forecasts for your local area are provided
by a number of web sites including:
National Weather Service --many options, a very good site
Oregon Climate Data -- Oregon only; current, past and future weather/climate info
Oregon Travel Adisory -- road reports, live cameras, tourism, more
Oregon River Data -- up-to-the minute and historic river levels, snow pack and related info
USDA Ag Weather & Climate -- excellent links
Wunderground (Weather Underground) --select any region, country, state, or city by clicking the appropriate category and hot-linked map
USBR Agriment Network -- daily weather,
crop water
use, 1997 ET (evapotranspiration) summary, irrigation guide, other