I.E: Eastern Tijuana, Mexico , November 19th, 9:39pm pst, 17c.

Below is a snapshot of the week ahead here in Hobart, and probably for the next couple of months, with hopefully higher lows and some much needed rain. The only guarantee down here is that the weather in spring will be unhinged.

Hope your season goes well!

the various bodies of water influence our palm trees and other exotic plants to a greater or lesser extent depending on their size and distance from our gardens

Lake Constance at the moment near us:

24.4 degrees Celsius / 75.92 degrees fahrenheit 

rising trend

Well another week pushing Texas further into drought, but it looks like things are going to change this coming weekend, at least for me.  Currently predictions are showing rain on Saturday and into at least mid next week.  Get those spring gardening tasks done, as it it looks like things are going to get muddy.

It is usually stated and written that South Florida's climate is subtropical. I would argue that extreme South Florida (and at the very least the coastal Miami/Ft. Lauderdale areas) has a fully tropical climate. Note, the FL Keys tend to be considered truly tropical already, so I won't include the Keys in this discussion.

I contend that, based on my first-hand observations of the area's vegetation and weather, as well as climate data available, extreme SE Florida meets all different definitions of a tropical climate except the definition that relates to latitude (Since all of Florida is north of the tropic of cancer). By the Koppen climate classification definition of a tropical climate, much of extreme South Florida (and certainly the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale areas) is tropical. This is because the average temperature of every month of the year in much of extreme South Florida is 64F or higher. For example, Miami's average January temperature is 67F, which is several degrees above the minimum temperature required to be considered a tropical climate.

The vegetation of extreme South FL ranges from predominantly tropical in much of the region to almost exclusively tropical in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale as well as their adjacent barrier islands. Miami Beach looks every bit as tropical as the Bahamas and Cozumel. On the other hand, areas of South Florida such as Fort Myers and West Palm Beach have predominantly temperate native vegetation. Temperatures in these areas are right on the borderline of qualifying as tropical by the Koppen definition. Of course, these areas are more prone to killing freezes as well.

It is true that extreme South Florida does occasionally experience chilly weather and even frost and freezing temperatures from December through February. There are many other tropical areas worldwide that can experience the same level of cold weather on occasion. This mainly applies to areas on the southern portions of continents where particularly potent cold waves can surge relatively unmodified all the way to tropical regions. Even Cuba, an undoubtedly tropical island had killing frost and freezing temperatures in certain areas during the 1989 cold wave. This is just one of many examples I am familiar with. While Miami and Ft. Lauderdale proper have rarely experienced freezing temperatures, Miami Beach has never officially recorded a below freezing temperature.

One final thought. I feel an area's climate should be classified by averages not rare extremes. This does not mean, however, that an area's flora and fauna will not be dictated by the extremes as well as averages.

What are everybody's thoughts on this? Can extreme South Florida be considered tropical. If not, why?

-Michael

Check the link below for climate data of 623 present and past meteorological stations of the National Observatory of Athens

Enjoy!

https://noastats.netlify.app/

The minimum here at the house on 11/01/2025 was 49F.  It appears that the airport got down closer to 48F.  Stations closer to downtown and Lake Parker stayed in the 50s.  It looks like most of Orlando stayed above 50F.  At St. Johns Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve's 2nd Anniversary, we started the morning in the mid-40s (44F-46F), depending on which area of the garden you were visiting.  

Here's to hoping we don't get a nasty freeze on top of the drought. 🤞

aztropic 

Mesa, Arizona 

DESCRIPTION: Warm (red) and cold (blue) periods based on a threshold of +/- 0.5oC for the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) [3 month running mean of ERSST.v5 SST anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region (5oN-5oS, 120o-170oW)],

https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php

Since we are heading towards 2026 and this year in Larnaca is one of the driest in recorded history (if the remaining week does not bring very intense rainfall, 2025 would place Larnaca in the hot desert climate category), I decided to investigate how fast the climate has been changing here during this decade. I used open data from the Cyprus Meteorological Department to calculate temperature and rainfall averages from January 2020 until now (24 December 2025), and, as I expected, the results are very interesting indeed. I compared  Wikipedia climate data chart for 1991–2020 with the data from 2020 until now.

Of course, I understand that six years of data is too small for climate chart, but nonetheless, it provides a good indication where things are heading.

* Correction rain data is 2020 - 2025 December 24. Rain for year of 2025 only is 139.8 mm.

So far this late winter and early spring has been really pleasant.  70's and 80's and for the most part, lots of sun, the humidity has been low, as well as virtually no mosquitoes  Finally getting some rain, it has been a long time and much needed.

A relatively new WeatherStation has been located in PB near the old Blossom property. It is KFLPALMB357 (hereinafter “PB Station”) and is located on the intracoastal side rather than the ocean side. A winter climate comparison between this station and the numbers at PBIA (airport) should provide an interesting test of the existence of the Gulfstream/Florida Current micro-climate theory.

To that end:

PBIA                          PB Station

12/21                         12/21

MMM.                          MMM   
85/72.22/51F            83.9/74.7/55.7F

1/22 to date            1/22 to date 

MMM                       MMM

83/70.4/55F             81.3/73.1/60.9F

Both the minimum temperatures (5-6F) together with the median temperatures (2-3F) are substantially higher at the PB station when compared to PBIA.

The same anomaly can be witnessed at locations substantially further south in the Florida Peninsula, where the GulfStream/Florida Current is further from land. Miami Beach weather station KFLMIAMI89 (hereinafter “MB”) compared to the PB Station reports the following:

MB                            PB Station 

12/21                         12/21

MMM                        MMM 

86/75.1/56.4F         83.9/74.7/55.7F

1/22 to date            1/22 to date 

84.8/73/59.1F         81.3/73.1/60.9F

The longitude of MB is 80.019 while the longitude of PB/PB Shores is approximately 80.036. The latitude of MB is 25.76 while PB/PB Shores is 26.78. This constitutes almost a full degree of latitude but the minimum and median temperatures are almost identical.

Does anyone have any tips or knowledge as to whether they will be okay? 
 

posting pics from last night when I wrapped versus today in the snow. We have gotten about 10 inches so far. 
 

love these palms and really hope they’ll be okay!! 

Here the link: https://ddg-web.de/whz.html

This was surprising to see so much of it in really cold conditions, and interesting that Corpus Christi Texas will be colder than Galveston and even Southeastern Colorado the next week! Lots of shivering palms coast to coast!🌴🥶🌴

It appears that it is by far the warmest area annually in geographical Europe beating even the warmest areas of the Canaries islands (which are not located in Europe anyways). Below Lindos data the past 7 years that the station is operating.

By achieving an amazing 21.89C mean annual temperature it beats even Tenerife South AP station in the Canaries for the same period which is the warmest met station in the Canaries.

Below some more info for meteo enthusiasts 

https://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/117931-greek-islands-cyprus-v-canaries-madeira-2018/&do=findComment&comment=1137494

Sure the data are for a limited period of only 7 years and the winter temps in Lindos seem cool at a first glance to support cocos. However, we have examples of cocos surviving in Newport Beach, California which is even cooler compared to Lindos. Apart from the cool winter temps do you think the extremely hot summer temps can harm any attempts to grow cocos in Lindos? The excruciating high summer temps of Lindos are due to constant foehn winds throughout the summer.

So, I am skeptical..But what do you think it would take for cocos to grow in Lindos?