PNW Zone Hardiness Map Visualizations

I am a gardener and a computer nerd and I recently did something that was fun I thought of sharing with fellow tech-gardeners.

I noticed the Prism Climate Group's Northwest Alliance for Computational Science and Engineering freely published the geo-referenced data of the USDA Plant Hardiness zone map data set from 2023. This data is compatible with Geographic Information System (GIS) softwares suites like QGIS which is free software I sometimes dabble with. While QGIS may seem a little clunky when using it at first it is much more flexible and capable of producing informationally dense interactive maps than the simple internactive map and images you get from the USDA web site or stacking un-referenced image data in digital painting/drawing software suites.

I grabbed the CONUS (continental united states) KML, I won't drag out the process beyond that (there are tutorials for YouTube for it), but I produced a few maps from places around the PNW to share. These 8k resolution maps are of: SW Oregon/Alvord, NW Oregon/Astoria, SW Oregon/Brookings, closeup of Buck Bay on Orcas Island WA, Central WA/Ellensburg Valley, Northern Central OR/Hood River, Northern Puget Sound WA/Orcas Island, and Seattle WA. Check em out here

Disclaimer: low resolution USDA plant hardiness data doesn't guarantee all areas within a zone 9a box are going to be 9a. Its best to also explore the terrain and data with free software like Google Earth Pro or Google Earth Web (Chrome Browser) both of which can load the KML data files from Prism. In Google Earth the map data is unlabeled so I find its best to turn off all zones and then turn on one zone at a time so you know what you are looking at. Look for sun exposed areas, microclimates, where the cold air is likely to pool in winter/etc, and try and make your best guesses on where the more interesting/exceptional growing locations are at within zone designated areas. The entire system of average minimum winter temps isn't accounting for all kinds of other useful data that can inform growing (its a flawed system), but this GIS stuff is still nifty if you just want to make some better 2023 zone hardiness maps and further explore the data in greater detail.

If it interest y'all I'd encourage you to check it out and make some of your own maps!