Albany, New York
Mowing
When you can next cut it, and the best slot this weekend.
Best weekend slot
Monday 10am–8pm
Verdict: Good
no rain since Sunday, ground firm
Next mow
Friday 8am–9am
Verdict: Good
ground soft — 69mm rain over the last week
The next 10 days
Column height is how mowable the day is; the lighter band is the best stretch within it. The line is soil temperature at 6cm. It crosses the seeding threshold inside this forecast.
12.5°C — seeding
Soil at 6cm 19.1°C cooling to 0.0°C
Wednesday 2 September: Not worth it. No — nothing quite good enough today.
Wednesday 2 SeptemberConfident
No — nothing quite good enough today.
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Tuesday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm23mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.98
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature18°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light13 km/h
Limiting factor:none
Thursday 3 September: Good. No — 45.0mm of rain falling.
Thursday 3 SeptemberConfident
No — 45.0mm of rain falling.
- Marginal:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground soft23mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.98
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature18°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light8 km/h
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Friday 4 September: Good. 8am–9am — ground soft — 69mm rain over the last week
Friday 4 September · 8am–9amConfident
8am–9am — ground soft — 69mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Poor:Ground firmness
- Ground soft69mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.97
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature19°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light3 km/h
- Sociable hours
- A bit early or late, but finestarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Saturday 5 September: Good. 8am–8pm — ground soft in places — 53mm rain over the last week
Saturday 5 September · 8am–8pmConfident
8am–8pm — ground soft in places — 53mm rain over the last week
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Marginal:Ground firmness
- Ground soft in places53mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 1.00
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature15°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light5 km/h
- Sociable hours
- A bit early or late, but finestarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Sunday 6 September: Good. 11am–8pm — ground soft in places — 53mm rain over the last week
Sunday 6 September · 11am–8pmReasonably confident
11am–8pm — ground soft in places — 53mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Marginal:Ground firmness
- Ground soft in places53mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.92
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature14°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light9 km/h
- Sociable hours
- Fine by the neighboursstarts once the dew has burnt off
Limiting factor:ground firmness
Monday 7 September: Good. 10am–8pm — no rain since Sunday, ground firm
Monday 7 September · 10am–8pmReasonably confident
10am–8pm — no rain since Sunday, ground firm
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Sunday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm55mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.89
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature12°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light5 km/h
- Sociable hours
- Fine by the neighboursstarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:none
Tuesday 8 September: Good. 8am–8pm — no rain since Sunday, ground firm
Tuesday 8 September · 8am–8pmReasonably confident
8am–8pm — no rain since Sunday, ground firm
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Sunday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm55mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.98
- Marginal:Temperature
- Temperature14°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light3 km/h
- Sociable hours
- A bit early or late, but finestarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:none
Wednesday 9 September: Good. No — 0.1mm of rain falling.
Wednesday 9 SeptemberReasonably confident
No — 0.1mm of rain falling.
- Poor:Grass wetness
- Grass drydried off since a shower 0 hours ago
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm51mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.95
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature17°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light5 km/h
Limiting factor:grass wetness
Thursday 10 September: Not worth it. No — ground frozen.
Thursday 10 SeptemberLow confidence this far out
No — ground frozen.
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass drydried off since a shower 3 hours ago
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm55mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.92
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature21°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light15 km/h
Limiting factor:grass wetness
Friday 11 September: Not worth it. No — ground frozen.
Friday 11 SeptemberLow confidence this far out
No — ground frozen.
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm12mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.77
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature11°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light6 km/h
Limiting factor:none
Growth
How fast it is growing, and when it will need cutting again.
0.98Growing strongly
Growth potential, 0 to 1 — the turf-industry measure of how fast grass can grow at today's temperature and day length.
Putting on about 5.9mm a day. A lawn cut today would be ready for another in around 3 days.
Worked out from the PACE Turf growth potential model and day length —how and why.
What this means right now
Good: Seeding window open
Seeding conditions are open — soil is 19.2°C at 6cm and holding above 12.5°C.
Warning: Heat stress
Thursday 3 September gets hot enough to stress the sward. Mow early or late, and raise the height.
Worth watching: Ground still soft
23mm rain over the last week. A mower will mark it, and a ride-on will rut it.
Seeding
Soil temperature at germination depth, and when the window opens.
Soil temperature
67°F19.2°C
at 6cm — germination depth
Cooling over the next 10 days.
Seeding conditions are open — soil is 19.2°C at 6cm and holding above 12.5°C.
Cross-checks against an independent estimate from air temperature (19.4°C), which agrees to within 0.2°C.
Most cool-season lawns in the northern US and Canada are bluegrass, tall fescue, or a mix of the two. We assume that, and use12.5°C as the seeding threshold.
I know what grass I have
The differences are small. Ryegrass is the quickest off the mark; bluegrass is the slowest and wants the warmest soil. Everything else sits between.
| Species | Soil temp | Days |
|---|---|---|
| Perennial ryegrass | 8°C | 5–10 |
| Red / chewings fescue | 8–10°C | 10–14 |
| Tall fescuelikely yours | 10–12°C | 10–14 |
| Browntop bentColonial bentgrass | 10–12°C | 14–21 |
| Smooth-stalked meadow grassKentucky bluegrasslikely yours | 12–13°C | 14–28 |
Feeding
Why timing decides whether a feed does anything at all.
Coming in the app
Grass takes up nitrogen when it is growing. Feed a lawn that has stopped and most of it washes past the roots — which is why timing beats product choice.
Right now this lawn is growing well enough to use a feed.
The app will work out the actual feeding windows for your lawn — along with weed control, scarifying and moss treatment — and tell you when they open without you having to check.
Albany, New York in detail
Soil temperature at 6cm in Albany, New York is currently 19.2°C, and falling about 19.1°C over the next 10 days. That depth matters because it is where grass seed sits and where roots start working, and it lags air temperature by days — which is why a warm afternoon here tells you very little on its own.
Lawns in this area are typically Kentucky bluegrass with tall fescue, the usual mix for cool-season lawns at this latitude. That blend needs the soil to hold above 12.5°C before seed germinates reliably. Seeding conditions are open — soil is 19.2°C at 6cm and holding above 12.5°C.
7 of the next 10 days are good mowing days. The best weekend slot right now is Monday 10am–8pm, on the basis that no rain since Sunday, ground firm.
The next recommended window in Albany opens at 8am on Friday 4 September, because anything earlier is the hour your neighbours will remember. Underfoot, the ground reads as firm after 23mm rain over the last week.
Forecast from Open-Meteo, refreshed hourly. Soil temperature is modelled, not measured — how that works and where the thresholds come from.