Florida Freeze - January 30th, 2022

[RedRabbit]

This thread is to document climate observations recorded on the morning of January 30th, 2022. I’ll be uploading weather stations screenshots I took this morning here and I’d encourage anyone else to join in. 

[RedRabbit]

[Jimbean]

There are the screenshots I took this morning.  There are not all in order.

 

[JJPalmer]

Apologies in advance for the lack of cropping. The batch of screenshots is from roughly 6-6:30 am. It’s important to note that the lows in my area (Pinellas) actually occurred between 7 and 8, so I may not have grabbed the ‘coldest’ temps. 

[NickJames]

Apparently I was 23.2!? 

[RedRabbit]

Noteworthy Observations

- The east coast stayed above freezing through St. Augustine. Some of Jacksonville Beach was above freezing.

- The warmest locations on the peninsula were Useppa Island at 44f, then Miami Beach, Key Biscayne, North Captiva, and Coquina Key (St. Pete) at 43f.
- AMI was unofficially was the warmest place in Florida outside of the keys. Bradenton Beach had a weather station reporting 47f, but it was the only weather station so it’s not sufficiently credible. Currently AMI has no publicly viewable weather stations, but in the past the Bradenton Beach station usually ran 1-2f above AMI stations so based on this I’d speculate AMI was likely around 45f.

- St. Petersburg did very well on the bayside, likely due to a light NE wind. Inland St. Pete/ Gulfport made it as low as 29f. St. Pete Beach did relatively well around 40-41f. Coquina Key had readings of 42f and 44f, then a number of sites in Shore Acres had around 41f.

- In Tampa, the east side of South Tampa did the best thanks to the east wind. Davis Islands or Ballast Point did the best around 38f. Urban areas along Kennedy did pretty good. South Tampa as a whole did not do particularly well with a lot of low 30s. North of 275 did very poorly with virtually everywhere freezing and many areas in the 20s.

- In northern Pinellas, the same cold from Tampa got East Lake, Oldsmar, and Safety Harbor. West of Lake Tarpon generally did better but not as good as points in southern Pinellas. Tarpon Springs along the Anclote River has a few 36s so evidently the river is helpful. A station on the west side of Lake Tarpon had 37f, further evidence of a strong microclimate on the western side of the lake (but not the eastern side.) Clearwater Beach did okay, but not as well as St. Pete/St. Pete Beach.
- In Orlando, Winter Garden seemed to do the best with readings around 37-38f. Windermere did the next best with some 35s. Belle Isle seemed to also be comparable. Downtown was around 31f.

- Lakeland and Winterhaven did remarkably well in urban and lakefront areas. The lows looked to be in the 33-35f range compared to 20s outside of town. 
- Lake Okeechobee didn’t appear to have a shadow on the SE side as some nearby stations were in the low 30s. 
- Downtown Naples was mostly around 37f, not the warmest spot on the west coast this time due to some apparent eastern vulnerability.

- Siesta Key and points south to the end of Sarasota County went that warm. Lido and north seem to benefit a lot more from Sarasota Bay and Tampa Bay. Venice Island actually had 35f, a disappointing reading for being in a barrier island so close to the beach. 
- Cedar Key had 34f, which is impressive considering nearby areas were below 20f.

[RedRabbit]

Here’s where we documented the 2018 freeze if anyone wants to compare and contrast the two freeze events:

 

[JJPalmer]

From this morning (1/31).  Please note that for Pinellas County and maybe elsewhere, the coldest temps happened around 2 am, so these won’t be fully representative of the true lows. There may be some duplicates in here - my apologies in advance. 

[Jimbean]

From what I gather, the temperatures in my area ranged between 32.2F and 41.4, all within roughly a square mile of each other.  I've lived in Brevard county practically my entire life, and in my 37 years of existence I don't think I've seen something like this before. 

Unfortunately I did not give myself enough time to take screen captures from weather underground.  I would have been nice to zoom in on some areas. 

[kinzyjr]

8 hours ago, Jimbean said:

From what I gather, the temperatures in my area ranged between 32.2F and 41.4, all within roughly a square mile of each other.  I've lived in Brevard county practically my entire life, and in my 37 years of existence I don't think I've seen something like this before. 

Be thankful this is a unique event in Brevard.

We almost always have a wide range here.  Jan. 2010 was a good example.  The lowest recordings I'm aware of for that freeze were in the 16F-17F range, predominantly in the areas around the line with Polk City and Auburndale, along with the area northwest of Kathleen.  The highest readings were 28-29F, predominantly here in the hills and over by SEU.

@RedRabbit had a great summary of this cold snap for my locale.  The urban, lake-modified, and elevated areas tended to stay at or above the low 30s, while there was a ring of 20s surrounding those spots.

[Jimbean]

24 minutes ago, kinzyjr said:

Be thankful this is a unique event in Brevard.

We almost always have a wide range here.  Jan. 2010 was a good example.  The lowest recordings I'm aware of for that freeze were in the 16F-17F range, predominantly in the areas around the line with Polk City and Auburndale, along with the area northwest of Kathleen.  The highest readings were 28-29F, predominantly here in the hills and over by SEU.

@RedRabbit had a great summary of this cold snap for my locale.  The urban, lake-modified, and elevated areas tended to stay at or above the low 30s, while there was a ring of 20s surrounding those spots.

Unusually temperatures don't vary that much around here.  Unlike the your area, we don't have any significant elevation changes or a chain of lakes.  I wish I would have gotten a more detailed snapshot of the Treasure and Space Coasts to pick out the microclimates but alas this was the one morning that I did not wake up early. 

The biggest factor I think, from the data that I have gathered, is that the main contributing factor was the proximity to the Indian River.  Otherwise I think there were just subtle differences in heat island, or other factors at play.  Still, it's hard to believe that those smaller factors made that much of a difference. 

I also want to add that I have yet to see any damage on any of the coconuts, adonidias, or papayas in the area, and little to no burn on the bananas yet.  I have also not yet ventured west of I-95 where there were recordings of upper 20's.

[SubTropicRay]

On 1/30/2022 at 9:39 PM, RedRabbit said:

 

 

The two max/min thermometers read 34.3 and 34.7 as the lowest minimums.   

[Merlyn]

Here's my chart for the weekend, located just NW of the Orlando urban heat island.  Note I had a poorly placed sensor that read the ambient tree temperature instead of the ambient air temperature:

[Jimbean]

I see hardly any freeze damage.  There is some patchy frost damage to the weeds/grass in my front yard, some spotting on the coconut and slight discoloration on the frond end of a Dypsis species.  The neighbor's Dypsis lutescens looks untouched and Ficus benjamina on the other street also shows no damage (both are circled).  I will be going west of I-95 in a couple of days and I'll see the damage out there.

1-29  40F

1-30   35F

1-31  Roughly 36F

2-1    43F