Meteorologist Dave Epstein is our go-to person for pressing weather questions on everything from spring heat to allergies. He’s also a horticulturist, meaning he’s an expert in anything that grows leaves and flowers. GBH's Morning Edition asked our audience for weather and gardening questions, and Epstein graciously answered them on the air. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Have a gardening or weather question for meteorologist Dave Epstein? Tweet him @GrowingWisdom, email us at thewakeup@wgbh.org, or text 617-300-2008.
Warm weather is usually a good thing this time of year, but are we still a little too hot for where we should be?
Yesterday we had a high of 74 and a low of 52, five degrees above average. In fact, the temperature has been above average most of the month so far.
But, Epstein said, May was quite cool at the beginning, when it was in the 50s.
“So the first five or six days of the month, we were running below average — add that in with what's happened since, we're now running four degrees for the month above average. And to run a month four degrees above average is a lot,” he said.
Epstein said we usually see four 80-degree days during the entire month of May, and we have already had three, plus today. He said we will continue to see the warmer trend.
“Like most of our months now, they just end up being above average by some amount,” he said. “We just don't get many below averages each month.”
How is the warm, dry weather affecting fire conditions and my yard?
Epstein noted that Logan Airport has seen .28 inches of rainfall this month, while normally it would see 1.53 inches.
“That's a huge deficit in rainfall this month. We're behind by an inch and a quarter,” he said. “And I really don't see much chance of any rain until sometime maybe Sunday.”
Starting this afternoon, we could start to see the impacts of that dryness.
“Lawns are going to start burning out, and plants — it's going to dry things out really quite a bit this afternoon and tomorrow,” he said. “Dew points and temperature are going to be so far apart that our relative humidity — the gap between the two — will be similar to what you'd find in the desert.”
What impact does the weather have on allergies right now? Why does it seem worse at night?
Epstein said that trees and grasses do release more pollen overnight. “So if your windows are open at night, it actually goes up at night,” he said.
Dryness also comes into play to make allergies worse.
“We haven't had any rain to cleanse the air,” he said.
