Flowers, trees, bugs confused by freakishly warm December

Doyle Rice | USA TODAY

The calendar may say winter, but trees are blooming, insects are buzzing and allergies are making a comeback across the eastern USA.

The freakishly warm December that’s set thousands of record temperatures — with dozens more predicted to fall Thursday on Christmas Eve — is also confusing trees, plants, flowers and bugs and could throw spring out of whack, too.

“Not only could the warm weather create the problem of early budding and blooming, but in addition, fruit trees need a certain number of hours of chilling for best fruiting, which they may not get if the warm weather continues,” said horticulturist Ralph Scorza of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Appalachian Fruit Research Laboratory in Kearneysville, W.Va.

If the trees don't get enough time in the cold, spring blooming can be delayed or erratic and the quality of the fruit may suffer, he added.

Bulbs like those for tulips and daffodils also need a bit of a chill in order to blossom well later on. Any flowers blooming now because of the warm weather may not bloom at all in the spring, said Richard Olsen, director of the National Arboretum.

A quick, dramatic temperature drop in January or February would also be problematic, leading to damage to trees and plants suddenly unprepared for the cold.

"Once the buds reach a certain stage of growth, if they are exposed to a hard freeze, that may be it for the year," said Kim Kaplan of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service.

With no Arctic blasts on the horizon, according to the Climate Prediction Center, the eastern half of the nation geared up for yet another round of record warmth Thursday.

Dozens of record highs could be set Christmas Eve across 25 states, stretching from Maine and Michigan southward to parts of the Gulf Coast states and Florida, according to Weather.com.

That would come on top of the 2,661 record high temperatures that have already been set or tied across the nation in the first three weeks of the month, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. In the same time period, only 147 record lows were set.

If the above-normal temperatures continue, it could be good news for bugs — and not-so-good news for plants.

"If the weather remains warmer than average, there will be no winter kill of the insects that damage plants by eating them, laying eggs in them or spreading diseases to them," Kaplan said.

Come spring, that could mean more stink bugs, said Kevin Hackett, also of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service. That would impact fruit farmers, who will have to watch out for the pesky critters earlier than usual.

Pests like ticks, chiggers and fleas could also hang around, said Les Parks, curator of herbaceous plants at the Norfolk, Va., Botanical Garden.

"We might have some insects that we want to see go away ... that might have a better life in the winter than we would normally want," Parks said.

Allergies are also rebounding with the winter warmth. Dr. Pinkus Goldberg has seen more asthmatic patients recently at his Indiana practice and attributes the rise to a weather-induced increase in mold growth and dust mites — the region's most common allergen.

“Dust mites need moisture out of the air to thrive,” he said. “Cold air can’t hold as much moisture, and when it gets bitterly cold, insects like dust mites die.”

Contributing: Gabrielle Ferreira, Indianapolis Star; Kristina Zverjako, 13News Now