31 year anniversary of the 1989 freeze

[Jimbean 918]

Here's an early Christmas present to the forum. 

[D. Morrowii 395]

Key West still hung on to zone 11 temps even it that!  19-20 degree low where I live :-( My Sabals would remain at least lol

[Jimbean 918]

17 minutes ago, D. Morrowii said:

Key West still hung on to zone 11 temps even it that!  19-20 degree low where I live :-( My Sabals would remain at least lol

I used to live on Merritt Island and talked to the old timers there.  They told me that it got down to 21 to 22 degrees there in December 1989.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Jimbean

[kinzyjr 5,491]

8 minutes ago, D. Morrowii said:

Key West still hung on to zone 11 temps even it that!  19-20 degree low where I live :-( My Sabals would remain at least lol

The official all-time low in Key West is 41F. 

Here's another link where we discussed the various freezes: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/15208-looking-back-at-the-great-us-freezes/

Here were the readings at our airport for the 1989 Christmas Freeze:

[Jimbean 918]

21 minutes ago, D. Morrowii said:

Key West still hung on to zone 11 temps even it that!  19-20 degree low where I live :-( My Sabals would remain at least lol

And also Port St. John was 19F and Christmas about two miles north of highway 50 it got down to 13F

[D. Morrowii 395]

3 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

The official all-time low in Key West is 41F. 

Here's another link where we discussed the various freezes: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/15208-looking-back-at-the-great-us-freezes/

Here were the readings at our airport for the 1989 Christmas Freeze:

The temps shown for the 22nd are't too far off from whats forecast for Wednesday night. Otherwise 4 solid days of temps that never rose above 60 and those 2 days during Christmas I imagine were devastating to quite a few gardens

[JLM 1,171]

Well i imagine this is part of the reason why parts of NW FL look like central Alabama.

Edited December 20, 2021 by JLM

[Palmarum 2,767]

Still hurts to this day...

[Xerarch 1,133]

You know some of the temps on that map aren't THAT bad, look at Tampa, that looks like a regular really bad year, but not a catastrophic one, same in Jacksonville, that's bad but not too far out of whack for a 9a area that has recorded single digits (other years in the 80's were worse for certain areas).  But boy the bad ones are baaaaaaad, teens all over central Florida, that is completely unthinkable to nearly everyone living there that came from somewhere else or were too young to remember '89.  and freezing temps all the way down to Miami and that 25 right on the southern tippy-tip! Were it not for Feb '21 in Texas I bet many people would say an outbreak like that in Florida is not likely again, well, just keep your fingers crossed.

[Eric in Orlando 4,844]

I remember it well still. What made 1989 bad was that it followed previous devastating freezes in 12/83 and 1/85. Many tropicals and palms that survived those 2 freezes couldn't take a 3rd freeze and died.

[Scott W 745]

North Jacksonville had similar temps ten years ago as well....

[ahosey01 936]

When this happens in FL, the low temps stick around a while right?  Trying to relate to how it’s different from here in AZ.  My town hit 17F in 2007 but by late morning was back above 40F.  That doesn’t really happen in FL where it’s more humid and these events are advective rather than radiative, correct?

Edited December 22, 2021 by ahosey01

[Matthew92 1,151]

I was just visiting Tampa and seemed notice more very old (at least pre-80's) queens and some other semi-tropicals than I did in Orlando. May correlate with the above map that interior Orlando got more the short end of the stick in this event and killed many of those species.

[Scott W 745]

5 hours ago, ahosey01 said:

When this happens in FL, the low temps stick around a while right?  Trying to relate to how it’s different from here in AZ.  My town hit 17F in 2007 but by late morning was back above 40F.  That doesn’t really happen in FL where it’s more humid and these events are advective rather than radiative, correct?

The last deep freeze we had here it stayed at or below freezing for several days as the high, as I recall....but yeah, I'd say it typically climbs back similar to what you see.

[Aceraceae 66]

On 12/22/2021 at 9:16 AM, ahosey01 said:

When this happens in FL, the low temps stick around a while right?  Trying to relate to how it’s different from here in AZ.  My town hit 17F in 2007 but by late morning was back above 40F.  That doesn’t really happen in FL where it’s more humid and these events are advective rather than radiative, correct?

The desert, where it's almost guaranteed to be sunny each day ,can rebound very quickly and also drop very quickly like in New Mexico 'cold' deserts where desert palms and cacti are given dubious ratings such as being sort of desert zone 5, 6 or 7 but the low temps are extremely brief and between dry and sunny days. 

But Florida is further south and it's usually dry when it's cold and in winter so it also rebounds very quickly. Looking at the map for this freeze, it doesn't look all advective per micro climates and urban areas. 

[Joe The Palm 29]

On 12/19/2021 at 1:41 PM, Jimbean said:

Here's an early Christmas present to the forum. 

WOWZERS !  

[Aceraceae 66]

I guess the Everglades doesn't help any like lake O, the UHI and Biscayne bay, looking at that 25 degrees at what looks like that visitor center or a buoy. 

[bubba 1,903]

WPB airport (PBIA) recorded 28°F during this cold event. As I have demonstrated in the past, the locations close to the warm ocean extremely close to the Gulfstream/Florida Current low temperatures average 6F degrees greater than PBIA. Did it freeze in PB? I will never forget the steam coming off the ocean water! It was cold and windy but never saw frost and personally doubt a freezing temperature.

One gentleman I know who kept detailed records was out in the Glades in the “ lip of the lake” at Pahokee. He was an outstanding farmer, who faithfully kept records in his backyard on Lake Okeechobee and never recorded a freezing temperature and passed in 1996. This is the unique micro-climate that has been cited many times on this board. It is created by the jut of land to the immediate north that creates the lip to the south and mediates cold from the north because the air must travel over the relatively warm water of Lake Okeechobee.

Also, latitude and the warm Gulfstream/ Florida Current moderate cold air quickly in So Fl.