Life and Wildlife along the Little Buffalo River

The temperature has hovered in the upper 40’s to very low 50’s for 36 straight hours now — with fog, drizzle, rain, and thunderstorms. We have received about one inch of rain in the past 36 hours also.  Earlier this week it was a different situation. The air temperature fell to 28.7F on Tuesday morning 4/23/13. Ponded water in the yard was frozen; so this was not just a heavy frost. This cold spell set dozens of records here in NW Arkansas. Many late arriving tree leaves have now, as of Saturday, turned brown and need to restart the budding process. Most tender low vegetation and annual flowers were killed. Murray is a low valley in the high Ozarks and the cold air literally poured down and inside the valley. This is late for the last hard freeze in this area.