Yep it's snowing in Central Florida

[Ken Johnson 198]

Sleet was reported too. Raining here now. Look out for ice on the roads tonight .

[spockvr6 22]

Was hoping for it here Ken, but never saw it....stayed rain.

[palmsOrl 1,576]

I took this photo of sleet pellets falling on my car in Altamonte Springs. I like this weather but I'm sure the palms don't! The temp right now at 12:30 is hovering right around freezing.

-Michael

[Jimbean 490]

[Palmy 13]

^Thats a really scary image...

[Jimbean 490]

Here is sleet, I also saw snow flurries.

[Alicehunter2000 705]

I like this weather

-Michael

As they say in the backwoods of North Florida "You ain't right" ............ interpretation for non-redneck speaking folks "Michael is te'ched in the hayed" or for folks that don't understand that "Michael has something wrong with the way he thinks".

Sorry Michael......just an opinion.....

[Jason in Orlando 20]

I had sleet at my place in Doctor Phillips (within ear-shot of Universal Studios) around 0600. The noise on the skylights woke me up.

Jason

[tjwalters 188]

What's that 58 degree reading just north of the Tampa dot? Nuclear power plant?

[KMartin 0]

The 50s reading is probably a snensor that stopped working during the day and it still shows as the last known reading.

[Eric in Orlando 3,968]

No sleet or snow at my house, just rain. But it was damn cold, the coldest day I have experienced in Orlando in 30 years. It was mid 30sF most of the day.

[kinzyjr 3,778]

Looking back, quite a range of temperatures during this one.  Everything from 15.7F to 29.6F for ultimate lows.

Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1LFydDmJ83rzLAKpAua3Mjm0mPP4xJfEp&usp=sharing

Raw Data: See attached sheet.

For comparison, these were recorded at the airport (KLAL): Wunderground (27F), NOAA (23F), AccuWeather(23F)

202101222340_Jan2010Stats_WU_PWS.xlsx

[ruskinPalms 468]

Wow! Crazy stuff from 2010. I was living in Bradenton that year and while it was certainly a cold winter, I don’t remember a heck of a lot about it. I was at a transitional time in my life and was not watching the weather and only had a little potted stuff at that time that I just moved up onto the lanai of the house I was renting at the time. I do remember a few heavy frosts that year and that some coconut palms bit the dust even beachfront in Venice, FL that year. They died not from ultimate low temps but from the prolonged cool and all the sea fog that formed over the abnormally cool gulf that  year. Ironically I remember that stuff looked more beat up on the immediate coast than a couple miles inland where the sun came out more frequently. I remember thinking that it was like San Francisco that year with all the cool sea fog. 

[Silas_Sancona 4,406]

2 hours ago, ruskinPalms said:

Wow! Crazy stuff from 2010. I was living in Bradenton that year and while it was certainly a cold winter, I don’t remember a heck of a lot about it. I was at a transitional time in my life and was not watching the weather and only had a little potted stuff at that time that I just moved up onto the lanai of the house I was renting at the time. I do remember a few heavy frosts that year and that some coconut palms bit the dust even beachfront in Venice, FL that year. They died not from ultimate low temps but from the prolonged cool and all the sea fog that formed over the abnormally cool gulf that  year. Ironically I remember that stuff looked more beat up on the immediate coast than a couple miles inland where the sun came out more frequently. I remember thinking that it was like San Francisco that year with all the cool sea fog. 

Yep, remember the sea fog vividly.. Had just moved to Largo ( Nov. '09 ) and remember walking Clearwater/ Indian Rocks beach on the days the sea fog was in and tink the same thing ( odd weather for FL, more like San Francisco reference ) That occurred right after a warm spell.. ( thinking temps were still above normal when i first got to the area that November )

Then came watching the upper end of Tampa Bay churn like the open Pacific when i'd cross it going between Largo/ Town-N-Country in the evening each weekend as the fronts/ colder air started settling in. Were a couple nights i did some storm chasing between Clearwater/ Indian Rocks and thought to myself " how the hell could anyone get away from here during a Hurricane " due to all the flooding i passed  through.

The morning of the 9th, i was on my way to a car dealership the place i worked for took car of north of Clearwater. Was cold and raining at my apartment/ where i worked.  Getting out of the truck and starting to move equipment off it, it was snowing/ sleeting/ raining. Snow didn't last long/ was light but.. Definitely not something i'd ever expected to see in FL.

Remember walking various beaches right after the worst of the freeze/ cold episode started to back off.. Was amazing just how much stuff had been killed and was washed up.. Never saw any Turtles, but all sorts of fish/ other stuff..  And the water was about as cold as what is "normal " for beaches i frequented in/around Santa Cruz/ Central Monterey Bay Area..

Have never checked again but there was a newer development near where i worked which looked like they'd installed a # of large, trunking Coconuts/ Royals right before the weather went south. Considering all the Coconuts that got destroyed, -right along the coast- between Clearwater and Treasure Island that winter, wonder how the others fared in the development further inland. Would hate to be the company who installed them.

From what i remember, 2010-11 was chilly at times also, but nothing like the winter before..

[PalmatierMeg 5,684]

Remember that winter well. On Jan. 10 rain fell all that day and the temps fell from the low 40s to mid 30s during the day. In the nearly 28 years I've lived here, this was the only time we got rainfall below 50F. I ran around trying to cover my recently planted tropical jungle palms, esp. my gorgeous Areca concinna, fruitlessly, because it collapsed and died several months later. Icy rain devastated 30+ species of palm that keeled over dead up to 9 months later. And I came down with bronchitis. The rain ended after sundown, the sky cleared and temps fell to a record 28.5F Jan. 11. Coldest morning ever for us. 

The cold devastated the local populations of over-planted Adonidia merrilii, although my double and triple somehow survived outside the east side of the lanai. Christmas palms that survived didn't flower or set fruit for two years. December 2010 brought record cold even worse than last Dec. But nothing has bested Jan. 11, 2010.

[AnTonY 159]

@PalmatierMeg

All those palms died from just one day of cold rain?

[chad2468emr 239]

On 1/23/2021 at 12:14 PM, PalmatierMeg said:

Remember that winter well. On Jan. 10 rain fell all that day and the temps fell from the low 40s to mid 30s during the day. In the nearly 28 years I've lived here, this was the only time we got rainfall below 50F. I ran around trying to cover my recently planted tropical jungle palms, esp. my gorgeous Areca concinna, fruitlessly, because it collapsed and died several months later. Icy rain devastated 30+ species of palm that keeled over dead up to 9 months later. And I came down with bronchitis. The rain ended after sundown, the sky cleared and temps fell to a record 28.5F Jan. 11. Coldest morning ever for us. 

The cold devastated the local populations of over-planted Adonidia merrilii, although my double and triple somehow survived outside the east side of the lanai. Christmas palms that survived didn't flower or set fruit for two years. December 2010 brought record cold even worse than last Dec. But nothing has bested Jan. 11, 2010.

I can literally feel the dread and stress you must have gone through watching this happen! As bad as this winters been, this certainly puts things into perspective! 

[Jeffnparrishfl 9]

That was the worst winter by far I can remember since living here since 2006

[PalmatierMeg 5,684]

On 1/30/2021 at 6:59 PM, AnTonY said:

@PalmatierMeg

All those palms died from just one day of cold rain?

Very likely. I had many spp of tropical palms. The rain came in overnight when temps were in the low 40s (the only time in my 28-year residence it rained below 50F). It rained all that day while temps continued to fall into the mid-30s. It finally stopped raining around dusk and the clouds cleared out. Temps remained in the 30s overnight with howling winds. The next day the high rose to the mid-40s. The following night fell to 28.5F.

Winter of 2009/10 was colder, cloudier and rainier than normal well into March - just plain dreary and nasty. Those palms never stood a chance. Some of them were dead for weeks and months and didn't know it. That's why you can't assume it's over when the sun comes out - the carnage may just be starting. Heartaches by the dozen, troubles by the score.

[GoatLockerGuns 289]

On 2/16/2021 at 10:36 AM, Jeffnparrishfl said:

That was the worst winter by far I can remember since living here since 2006

I remember that winter well.  I remember it being a big deal on the news networks that all 50 states had snow on the ground (https://www.climatecentral.org/news/map-50-states-snow-18664); apparently, that does not happen very often.

[AnTonY 159]

3 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Very likely. I had many spp of tropical palms. The rain came in overnight when temps were in the low 40s (the only time in my 28-year residence it rained below 50F). It rained all that day while temps continued to fall into the mid-30s. It finally stopped raining around dusk and the clouds cleared out. Temps remained in the 30s overnight with howling winds. The next day the high rose to the mid-40s. The following night fell to 28.5F.

Winter of 2009/10 was colder, cloudier and rainier than normal well into March - just plain dreary and nasty. Those palms never stood a chance. Some of them were dead for weeks and months and didn't know it. That's why you can't assume it's over when the sun comes out - the carnage may just be starting. Heartaches by the dozen, troubles by the score.

This is all interesting because it shows the sheer contrast. What you've just described, which was the unfortunate death kneel for many of your tropical palms, is literally just an expected chilly winter day in much of Texas and the northern Gulf Coast. That made a huge difference with regards to the palms that you took the liberty of cultivating through that time period.

To me, this further illustrates the importance of upper-level patterns, and how that affects the weather that we see. It takes a shallow cold airmass in place with an upper-level jet stream in place to produce the cold rain and snow that was seen across Florida during that event - that is the phenomenon of overrunning, much more frequent over Texas and the Northern Gulf, meaning that the jet stream must have been very far south across the Florida peninsula during that year. And, if there was a strong enough Arctic high off NE Canada, that could have driven down serious CAD, and that could amplify the Arctic Air over Florida during that event.

You're definitely right that one can not assume it's over right from the start. I don't know if this applies to all palm varieties, or just certain species, but it's definitely something that I'll have to prepare and watch out for across the landscape here over the coming weeks and months.