EFFECT OF FROSTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 197, 22 July 1941, Page 6

EFFECT OF FROSTS

Yet another frost, though slight, was experienced in Palmerston, North overnight, this being the eleventh in succession. The reading at Massey College this morning was found rto he .3deg. This is much below tho recordings taken on several mornings of tnu past week. . , Early morning temperatures in the Wairarapa have remained very low of late. The frost recorded on Sunday morning was one of 16.5 degrees, a record lor nearly two years, and yesterday morning a lrost of 15.6 degrees was registered. A record frost for the season of 12 degrees was recorded at Hastings yesterday morning. Heavy damage to early tomato plants in low-lying districts round Auckland is reported as a result of last week’s frosts. Many thousands of plants, scorched by the cold snap in unheated glasshouses, will have to be replanted. The temperatures of the past few days have led many people to inquire as* to just what constitutes a Host. Meteorologists register any temperature below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, read at grass level, as a frost. Thus a temperature of one degree .below freezing point constitutes one degree of frost. Frost itself is water in the atmosphere which is crystallised by freezing upon exposed objects. Ihe frost crystals themselves in no way damage plants and growth, it is stated. It is the freezing of the juices in the vegetation that injures them. The condition that precedes frost is a~ cooling of the air close to tho earth’s surface, usually brought about by the radiation of heat from the earth on a calm, clear night Frost is beneficial to rough ground. It converts rocks to soil by the expansion of water which it freezes in crevices in the stone.