Severe weather hits Central Valley as blossoms begin to bloom

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Strong winds whipped through the Central Valley, knocking down power lines and trees. This comes as blossoms begin to open across the region.

Farm bureau and county officials spent the Wednesday checking in on orchards in the Central Valley to assess potential damage, but they said it's too soon to tell what impacts this could have on the season.

"Most likely it looks minimal, but we know there were some isolated areas that got hit with some much higher winds and so they may suffer more damage, so we don't know immediately, it's going to take some time to figure that out," said Ryan Jacobsen, Fresno County Farm Bureau.

Jacobsen with the Fresno County Farm Bureau said we're still early when it comes to blooms, so there's the potential any buds that were lost can be made up for with more blooms. However, as we move through the next few weeks, severe weather could have harsher impacts.

"I'm watching those nighttime temperatures hoping we don't get below freezing because those blossoms are very susceptible to freezing temperatures," said Jacobsen. "Hail is another big potential for this time of year, is that we could get a hail event that could completely wipe fields out of you happen to be under the wrong cloud."

Cold weather could also prevent the bees from pollinating the blossoms. Jacobsen says the magic number they're looking for is temperatures from 55 to 58 degrees to coax the bees out.

"Most days are well below that over the 10-day forecast and there are some issues if we don't get those bees flying to hopefully pollinate so many of our crops here in the valley," said Jacbosen.

In the short term, the Blossom Trail should be good, with a peak expected at the end of the month and the beginning of March.

Jonathan Avedian with Fresno County said the cold weather we saw in January delayed the blooming process, so visually, blooms are about a week behind where they normally would be this time of year.

"Right now it's still early most of the blooms haven't gotten loose enough to get knocked off real bad, so it shouldn't have any significant impact," said Avedian.