This week is a pretty good example of why it is good to not get too comfortable with any particular weather pattern this time of year. Monday’s snow showers will be followed by a bit of a break between systems Tuesday; and high temperatures will warm back up into the 60s. It is followed by another storm moving in Wednesday that will likely give the valleys cold rain showers and could put a little more snow up in the mountains. Thursday and Friday remain unsettled and mild before things clear out and warm up just in time for the weekend.

Jan was wondering about a popular adage: “I have heard the comment that we couldn’t plant any tomatoes or such until the snow was off Peavine. I’m down at Topaz Lake… does it still apply or would Mt. Segal be our hill?”

Peavine is an 8,000+ foot peak just north of town. But I’m not a big fan of the Peavine adage, since present temperatures aren’t affected by past temperatures… or past snowfalls for that matter. Here in Reno, the average date of the last killing frost is about now, and it is probably a little later down there near Topaz. But with proper precautions (wall o’ waters, for example) you can usually get tomatoes in the ground a few weeks before that.