MUSELLA, Ga. — Old Man Winter is going to come in and flex some strength this weekend, with temperatures in the 20s.
You may think that sounds harsh, but peach growers like Lee Dickey are jumping for joy.
"We were definitely behind in terms of cold hours -- probably 150 hours behind what we wanted to be at that time," Dickey said.
Dickey had concerns for his 1,000 acres of trees.
The official state fruit needs chill hours as it lays dormant over the winter.
It's as important as water to a human.
"It's not something we usually talk about, but in order for those leaves to break out and that tree to grow healthy, it needs the cold hours, similar to what the peaches need themselves," Dickey said.
The magic number used to sit at 1,000 hours. That gave growers the chance to pick bright peachy fruit off the trees, but new varieties have sprouted on the market, trees that can withstand a little more sun.
"Your favorite peaches of the year, almost all of those now, they're about 800 hours, 750 to 800 hours -- the Scarlet Prince, the Sun Prince," he stated.
We checked in with meteorologist Alex Forbes.
We got 24 days under 45 degrees in November, we dipped down and got warmer in December with only 16 days, and then rebounded in January with 23 days in that really good range.
Dickey has an app on his phone that tracks every hour as Mother Nature goes around the sun.
"We're right there and we've got a lot of cold weather, at least in the near future forecast, so we're tracking pretty good," he said with a smile.
Dickey says they're through the first hurdle of winter, but they still need things to fall into place before the packing shed comes to life and folks start piling into Musella for the summer staple.
An early freeze could ruin everything if it kills off the buds, which are the beginnings of an early peach.
"The best thing now if it can stay nice and cool and just have a slow spring, that's really what we'd love to see," he projected.