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Possible Florida Freeze - December 2017


RedRabbit

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11 hours ago, Chatta said:

I hit 40F Sun, 39F Mon and 45F Tues in Keystone, FL

Looks like high-30s/low-40s were the norm for Central FL.  Glad the afternoon temperatures rebounded some today.

  • Upvote 1

Lakeland, FL

USDA Zone 1990: 9a  2012: 9b  2023: 10a | Sunset Zone: 26 | Record Low: 20F/-6.67C (Jan. 1985, Dec.1962) | Record Low USDA Zone: 9a

30-Year Avg. Low: 30F | 30-year Min: 24F

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Hey, in marginal regions like mine, isn't the goal to "harden off" our palms at the start of winter (now) so that they get used to what is coming ahead gradually?  (Or is that just a myth). I don't mean starting off with a shock to the palms like 26 F.  I mean that the low 30s, for example, could be good for a palm's adaptation for a couple nights.  Is that logical or makes no sense at all? 

Personally, I deliberately didn't cover any plants because I want them to "get used to it." Someone please tell me if I'm way off base.

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19 hours ago, Sandy Loam said:

Hey, in marginal regions like mine, isn't the goal to "harden off" our palms at the start of winter (now) so that they get used to what is coming ahead gradually?  (Or is that just a myth). I don't mean starting off with a shock to the palms like 26 F.  I mean that the low 30s, for example, could be good for a palm's adaptation for a couple nights.  Is that logical or makes no sense at all? 

Personally, I deliberately didn't cover any plants because I want them to "get used to it." Someone please tell me if I'm way off base.

Not off base at all.  Covering my coconut palms was more of a "CYA" in case we got lower than what was predicted.  Everything else I have stays uncovered year round and is perfectly hardy where it is planted (all the tender stuff is in the back where it doesn't frost).  I definitely am of the belief that an adjustment period is better than going from 85F down to 30F in a day.

Lakeland, FL

USDA Zone 1990: 9a  2012: 9b  2023: 10a | Sunset Zone: 26 | Record Low: 20F/-6.67C (Jan. 1985, Dec.1962) | Record Low USDA Zone: 9a

30-Year Avg. Low: 30F | 30-year Min: 24F

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I just added about a dozen updates to the freeze damage section. We dropped to 22 at the house and 20 at the nursery, so much lower than forecasted.  Here is the big surprise that ill share:

These were 3g bismarckia from very silver, almost white madagascar sourced seed. These took 20f during a calm night with zero protection and have zero burn. During this same cold front brahea armata, clara, livistona chilensis, phoenix dactylifera,  brahea edulis, sabal causarium,  small washingtonia filifera sustained damage while these are untouched. The purple one in full sun saw 13f last year and burned to the ground.  The other two shaded palms saw low 20s in a cold frame last year in 1g pots. I was very impressed with how they handled this cold front compared to the other palms. 

 

20171213_141227.jpg

20171213_140744.jpg

20171213_140735.jpg

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4 minutes ago, Trópico said:

Anyone has any info on this? Dec 27.

FB1B18FB-00CB-4DE3-8E1A-4514BA0EB0F3.jpeg

I don’t, but all I gotta say is : YIKES. :o While I do think that it’s a far fetched forecast... the reality is that it’s always a possibility. Something to keep an eye on for sure, especially for y’all Flordians.

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2 hours ago, Trópico said:

pAnyone has any info on this? Dec 27.

FB1B18FB-00CB-4DE3-8E1A-4514BA0EB0F3.jpeg

:bemused:

Sure hope that isn't right. Thanks for the heads up.

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Westchase | 9b 10a  ◆  Nokomis | 10a  ◆  St. Petersburg | 10a 10b 

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While temps that low have occurred I have my doubts. The last post pasted from this website predicted lows in the low to mid 30s for my area. Actually that prediction was 10 degrees off. I got as low as 45.2F. If the same trend holds true, I'm looking at lows in the mid- to upper 30s. Bad news certainly but not catastrophic. What website is making all these grand predictions? Does anyone else confirm them at this time?

In the meantime I will keep a close watch.

  • Upvote 2

Meg

Palms of Victory I shall wear

Cape Coral (It's Just Paradise)
Florida
Zone 10A on the Isabelle Canal
Elevation: 15 feet

I'd like to be under the sea in an octopus' garden in the shade.

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I do not see this anywhere in the future forecast, but the snow line may go down into the south again, like Texas.

Edited by Palmaceae

Lived in Cape Coral, Miami, Orlando and St. Petersburg Florida.

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1 hour ago, PalmatierMeg said:

While temps that low have occurred I have my doubts. The last post pasted from this website predicted lows in the low to mid 30s for my area. Actually that prediction was 10 degrees off. I got as low as 45.2F. If the same trend holds true, I'm looking at lows in the mid- to upper 30s. Bad news certainly but not catastrophic. What website is making all these grand predictions? Does anyone else confirm them at this time?

In the meantime I will keep a close watch.

Well the last post (7 days out) also predicted a low near 60F for South Texas...instead it snowed and got down to the low-mid 30s :interesting:

Edited by Xenon
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Jonathan

Katy, TX (Zone 9a)

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1 hour ago, PalmatierMeg said:

While temps that low have occurred I have my doubts. The last post pasted from this website predicted lows in the low to mid 30s for my area. Actually that prediction was 10 degrees off. I got as low as 45.2F. If the same trend holds true, I'm looking at lows in the mid- to upper 30s. Bad news certainly but not catastrophic. What website is making all these grand predictions? Does anyone else confirm them at this time?

In the meantime I will keep a close watch.

..Thinking this was a snapshot taken from an older GFS 2m Temperature run on Tropical Tidbits. Looking over all the model runs, (going as far back as the 12z gfs run put out yesterday), I also dont recall seeing such cold reaching down into FL on everything I saw.. maybe acouple days near freezing for the Northern part of the state.. but, even so, the latest look (today's GFS 12z run) looks even milder, overall,  than earlier.. which wasn' all that cold to start with.. anyway,,

That' one thing anyone studying weather info always has to keep in mind.. model input/ output can be a roll of the dice, especially  on a run to run/ day to day basis..

You can have something like the 18z hour run depict a possible freeze event in X days, than change, completely, 2 runs later.. than change again.. and so on.. I myself almost "pulled the trigger", so to say, acouple days ago when some of the GFS runs were hinting at such an event pushing down into S. CA and  AZ.. one run was even hinting at frozen precip. possibilities for lower elevation spots just north or east of Phoenix ( roughly around x-mas) While a change to cooler weather is on its way, with perhaps acouple mornings when we might see more widespread mid/ lower 30s, the "outlier/ rouge" forecasts can be tossed for now.  

I always try to watch for obvious consistency over the course of 3 days / roughly 12 model runs ( 4 runs per day: 0z, 06z, 12z, & 18z) before really thinking about what I might have to do if a cold spell, or extended episode of abnormally warm/ dry weather is showing up in the forecasts. This is of course barring any surprises that are sure to occur. 

Can't always predict the finer things that can change on a dime such as being awaken last night by a rather summer-like thunderstorm, and receiving .25" of rain, vs the .06" that the weather guys anticipated.. Such is the nature, of nature... Tough to predict, and always on the move with a trick up her sleeve. 

On the flip side,  roughly 8 weeks left until our "winter" is pretty much history. Enjoying the break while it lasts.

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Out forecast was looking really bad a few days ago and while it still doesnt look great it still calling for snow on the 25th. We havent had snow in 4 years so we're about due. 

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Just today I passed by a coco palm that is located a couple minutes north of my home here in S. Texas. We’re talking about a coco that’s about a foot tall and survived this year’s snow and cold of Dec. 8th. No protection from the north. No canopy. It’s just tranquilly there in the sad lot, but still going strong! It’s oldest leaves we’re burned, but the coco itself had solid, light green fronds. While the forecast for S. Texas doesn’t look great for Christmas time either, I’m starting to wonder... why hasn’t anything died down here?! I expected a huge loss in cocos with the recent cold, but nothing! Another one of the cocos that is immediately west of my block seems to be growing like it’s summer! It has some trunk and is about 7-8 feet already! Apparently the cold hasn’t been so perilous for the RGV yet. Hopefully we won’t get any more wintery precipitation this year, now that it seems like the palms here are taking the dry cold pretty well.  

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I think maybe those were generated last night. There is really cold air coming down and it showed it going east. This morning was a complete 180 and going west. I guess time will tell what actually happens 

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7 hours ago, Silas_Sancona said:

..Thinking this was a snapshot taken from an older GFS 2m Temperature run on Tropical Tidbits. Looking over all the model runs, (going as far back as the 12z gfs run put out yesterday), I also dont recall seeing such cold reaching down into FL on everything I saw.. maybe acouple days near freezing for the Northern part of the state.. but, even so, the latest look (today's GFS 12z run) looks even milder, overall,  than earlier.. which wasn' all that cold to start with.. anyway,,

I was thinking maybe Tropical Tidbits too. Their GFS model didn't show cold temperatures like that so I'm not sure where it is coming from... The image I posted to start the thread was actually one Mike from spaghettimodels.com posted on Facebook.

Westchase | 9b 10a  ◆  Nokomis | 10a  ◆  St. Petersburg | 10a 10b 

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I don't know where that December 27 forecast came from.  According to The Weather Channel, there is no cold coming to South Florida anywhere in the forecast.  The forecast for December 27 in Miami Beach is high: 78; low: 69.

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Latest run just came out 12:05AM Dec 18th. These seem to change a lot every 12 hours so tomorrow morning might be a different story. This one shows FL to be nowhere near freezing. Maybe the very far north end will be in the low-mid 30s.

gfs_850_loop.gif

Edited by enigma99
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:floor:    ...Just looked at the forecast for Chandler via accuweather.. has us dropping to 23f next Sunday, 29f Christmas day.   At the same time: Tempe bottoms out at 45f Sunday morning, 36f Christmas day. Phoenix: 46f sunday/ 42f Christmas day.. Thinking someone hit the wrong buttons:rolleyes:   I anticipate that to be fixed by tomorrow  .. lets hope so anyways :huh::rage: 

Lots of space in the dining room, just in case:winkie:

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1 hour ago, Silas_Sancona said:

:floor:    ...Just looked at the forecast for Chandler via accuweather.. has us dropping to 23f next Sunday, 29f Christmas day.   At the same time: Tempe bottoms out at 45f Sunday morning, 36f Christmas day. Phoenix: 46f sunday/ 42f Christmas day.. Thinking someone hit the wrong buttons:rolleyes:   I anticipate that to be fixed by tomorrow  .. lets hope so anyways :huh::rage: 

Lots of space in the dining room, just in case:winkie:

No actually the GFS model had cold going towards phoenix, New Mexico etc at one point. I think the weather outlets are a few hours behind. Reading the GFS model directly is a better way to go :)

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10 hours ago, enigma99 said:

No actually the GFS model had cold going towards phoenix, New Mexico etc at one point. I think the weather outlets are a few hours behind. Reading the GFS model directly is a better way to go :)

Appreciate the tip, but pretty certain i already had that covered..  and yes, at one point, some of the model runs had a fairly significant looking cold spell forecast. Not so much atm.

Still anticipate acouple mornings in the 35-31f range forecasted, locally at least. We' ll see what happens.   Mid/ low 30s certainly isn't scary, not intimidating to me at least.

Anything below 29f is another story, which was why I had to note ( and laugh at)  what I saw on accu-faux last night.. changed, as id expected, when I checked again this morning... after running all the more trustworthy data.  

Scanning weather models quickly becomes part of ones' daily routine when you've spent time chasing storms... Its alot like die-hard surfers who religiously scour over daily surf reports, even if you aren't planning on catching a ride that day..

That being said,,  noting that the 12z GFS MSLP-precip, 500mb anomaly, & 2m air temp runs just finished ( per trop. tidbits).. interesting, to say the least, for the west coast around/ just beyond Jan. 1st.  Hopefully this is just another over- amplified, junk model run.  

Florida remains mild, (if not warm) for now.

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On 12/17/2017, 10:02:26, LF-TX said:

I don’t, but all I gotta say is : YIKES. :o While I do think that it’s a far fetched forecast... the reality is that it’s always a possibility. Something to keep an eye on for sure, especially for y’all Flordians.

 

On 12/17/2017, 9:55:38, Trópico said:

Anyone has any info on this? Dec 27.

FB1B18FB-00CB-4DE3-8E1A-4514BA0EB0F3.jpeg

Without any labels on this map makes me question the model it came from. Most will include date, run, etc. Are these temps or dew points?

 

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Maybe that's it. 

If not, the thing that strikes me as most wrong with that map is that it's 25 F in the panhandle and 29F in Miami at the same time. That's almost impossible.  When it's 25 degrees in the panhandle, it is often in the 70s Fahrenheit in Miami -- at least by day.  More often, it will be something like 54-58 overnight in Miami while it's in the 20s in the panhandle, and sometimes even warmer.  

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Thanks everyone. Normally I wouldn’t mind but I have pending travel plans and I panicked. I found that from a quite alarmist follow named Dabuh, usually accurate predicting swell trends.

Frank

 

Zone 9b pine flatlands

humid/hot summers; dry/cool winters

with yearly freezes

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Forecast now looks WAY better than it did a few days ago. Zero frozen precipitation now, low of 23 Monday AM

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16 hours ago, Trópico said:

Thanks everyone. Normally I wouldn’t mind but I have pending travel plans and I panicked. I found that from a quite alarmist follow named Dabuh, usually accurate predicting swell trends.

No worries, Tropico. I've heard of him, he's known for surf forecasting as you said.

I have an issue with a lot of these independent weather folks that post these images without a differentiating the image between a model run and an official forecast. There's a big difference between the two. During the hurricane season I remember Levi from tropical tidbits calling out a lot of these guys because they were posting model runs and the general public were reading them as an official forecast.

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Yikes! That freaked me out lol For what it's worth, as of this morning, the cold front will be arriving Christmas and will be bringing us (SW FL, Naples) a low of 55 degrees for Tuesday 12/26. After that, back in to the 60s for lows for the next few days...

Naples (inland), FL - technically 10a but more like 9b in the winter :hmm:

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Ooo now they're saying it will be a low of 60 *crossing fingers* ^_^

Naples (inland), FL - technically 10a but more like 9b in the winter :hmm:

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Yeah, they backed way down on lows around Christmas here too. Was forecast to be around freezing one night and mid-upper 30's for 2 other nights. And now low is 39 for just one night. I know it's coming though, for much of the winters in the last several years, almost like clockwork as soon as January hit, there was the 8b/9a freeze in those first 2 or 3 weeks.

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Weather Underground shows a cold front going through on Christmas Day (high dropping to 76 F) but back to the 80’s on Dec.27, 2017 at PBIA. Coldest minimum for Dec.2017 was 42 F on Dec.14, 2017 at PBIA. Same day PB station recorded a low of 50 F. What a relief that sweet cool time was!

What you look for is what is looking

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Enigma,

Thank you for that great link. Not certain how to use it but it gives interesting long-term cold front information.

What you look for is what is looking

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This will almost certainly change for the better, but if I was in the SE I would be freaking out! This was just released 10 min ago showing hard freezing on Jan 2nd-3rd. I would say it means upper 20s for orlando, maybe near freezing in Miami

Areas like new orleans and tx would get hit worse

 

6_E6_C2_CAA-36_E8-477_E-_B771-_DEE2_B564

Edited by enigma99
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1 hour ago, enigma99 said:

This will almost certainly change for the better, but if I was in the SE I would be freaking out! This was just released 10 min ago showing hard freezing on Jan 2nd-3rd. I would say it means upper 20s for orlando, maybe near freezing in Miami

Areas like new orleans and tx would get hit worse

 

6_E6_C2_CAA-36_E8-477_E-_B771-_DEE2_B564

Thanks for sharing, hopefully it does to wind up being that cold. 

Westchase | 9b 10a  ◆  Nokomis | 10a  ◆  St. Petersburg | 10a 10b 

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Why do these models usually show southern Arizona and southern California getting off easy?  I am always amazed at how the cold dip doesn't happen until mid-way across the continent.

I checked the latest forecast and the extremities of the cold snap will hit on January 2, as follows:

- Orlando:  55 (high)/47 (low)

- Miami Beach:  68 (high)/59 (low)

- Key West:  69 (high)/61 (low)

..... And then the temperatures will go back up to normal again.

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