The featured chart displays time series of soil temperature observations from the Muscatine ISU Soil Moisture site since March 1. The chart is an awesome illustration of how the frost leaves the ground. Prior to March 7th, the four, twelve, and 24 inch readings were all below freezing. The frost had not made it to the 50 inch depth. As the soil layers warmed and reached freezing, it took a bit of time to punch through the freezing point level. This is due to processes that take extra amounts of heat to convert the frozen water in the soil to liquid. The four inch punched through first and then twelve and then 24. The chart shows that this process took eight days to reach 24 inches. Eventually the warming reached 50 inches and its temperature slowly started to rise as well.

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Tags:   soiltemp