DENVER — A Freeze Warning is in place for much of eastern Colorado for tonight, with temperatures set to drop into the 20s across much of the plains. That means some parts of the state could be dealing with their first hard freeze of the season.
A hard freeze is different from a regular freeze for a couple of key reasons.
First and foremost, a hard freeze means that temperatures drop to 28 degrees or lower. That can lead to significantly different impacts than if the temperature were to, say, only fall to just 31 or 32 degrees, especially if it's only for a brief period of time.
A hard freeze is considered to be a killing freeze for most crops. There's not much you can do to protect plants with a hard freeze, unless you bring those plants inside.
While most plants will die in a hard freeze, here's a better idea about what specific plants could survive temperatures right around freezing as opposed to a hard freeze, and what you should do to protect tender vegetation.
Tonight's forecast is for temperatures to drop to around 30 degrees in Denver, and probably into the upper 20s in outlying areas like Greeley, Limon, and Fort Morgan. There's potentially a pretty big difference between the two; if temperatures stay around 30 in Denver (and if it's brief), some plants might be able to survive the night.
But if it drops down into the upper 20s, which seems quite possible in many areas tonight, that'd effectively end the growing season.
You should bring inside any plants that you might want to save tonight in Denver and across basically all of eastern Colorado, because we'll be pretty close to a hard freeze tonight.
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