December 13, 1962

[spockvr6]

Here are some copies of the front page of the St. Petersburg (FL) Times from December 13, 1962 (which was the date at which many all time records low temperatures were set).

I saw this posted on some boards in downtown St. Pete and took some photographs.  Note the ice hanging off of the newpaper name as well as the "Hour by Hour" temperatures shown in the top right corner of the page!  38F at 3 PM in the afternoon!

Some of the other historical headlines are also interesting.

[spockvr6]

Suffice it to say that they missed some of these forecasts as in the end many areas around Tampa Bay were in the upper teens (18-19F) and St. Petersburg was at 22F.  All of these set the historical records for low temperature.

[SubTropicRay]

Larry,

I see you made it over to Baywalk .

Ray

[spockvr6]

(Ray, Tampa @ Apr. 07 2008,06:34)

QUOTE

Larry,

I see you made it over to Baywalk .

Ray

Yes...went to the Gran Prix on Friday

[SubTropicRay]

That's a headline only plant people would catch.

[bubba]

Larry, That had to be the Freeze that ended all of the Coconuts,Austalian Pines and other tropicals in the Orlando area.I can remember Coconuts every where up there and then no more.

Those headlines are also a very interesting reminder of the "Cuban Missle Crisis".As a younger one living in Florida at the time,I remember driving to the Golf Course with my Father and seeing nothing but Military Vehicles heading South as far as you could see.I asked my Father if we were going to War and he said No.We got to the Golf Course and I listened to men all talking about the Upcoming War.It made me a little bit nervous.

[Eric in Orlando]

There was also a bad freeze in '77 then came the first of the big ones in the 80s in '83. '62 must have been the one that killed the Cocos in Orlando, my parents moved here in '79 but there weren't any around then or recently. But there were lots of Australian Pines and a few Royals. The freezes in the 80's took these out, especially in '89. There are still AP around but the are the suckering species, C. glauca,  these resprouted from the roots and you see them occasionally. Suprisingly there is a big stand of them along the turnpike somewhere up around Leesburg. All the big C. equisetifolia were killed out by '89.

[bubba]

Eric,I see those Australians off the Turnpike near the old Rinker plant.I can't believe that more Australians in Orlando.

[spockvr6]

Eric-

How do you tell the difference between the two Australian Pines?  There are tons of them around here, but I assume they must all be glauca?

[PalmatierMeg]

That must have been the year Fort Myers hit its alltime low of 26F. I lived in Virginia then. I think we had 3' of snow in our back yard.

[bubba]

Meg,That 62 Deal was a very Bad year.That Missle Crisis thing was scarier.I do not even remember it being cold here.But it was very scary.

[spockvr6]

I dont think 1962 was as bad for the more southern and eastern FL locations as in later freezes.  WPB only dropped to 30F, Ft Lauderdale was something north of 36F (36F is the record for 12/13 set in 1957), and Miami was 35F.

And yes...I believe the all time record low for Ft Myers (26F) was set on 12/13/62.

Im surely glad I wasnt around Tarpon Springs in 1962....the 19F seen here must have decimated the area.

[SubTropicRay]

1989 was colder in southeast Florida than 1962.

[Eric in Orlando]

There are 3 Australian Pine species in FL'

Casuarina equisetifolia is the very common in in soFL on the beaches. It doesn't sucker but seeds heavily and is very salt tolerant. It is also the most tender of the 3. I don't see any that survived the '89 freeze around here

C. glauca is the dark green one that suckers heavily and doesn't seed. It isn't salt tolerant but is flood tolerant. These are often ssen around canals or were usused as windbreaks. These are hardier than C. equisetifolia but below about 25F really damages them. In the '89 freeze Some were killed around here, some died to the ground and came back up from the roots.

C. cunninghamiana is the hardiest of the 3 but least seen. There are a few specimens around here and they only suffered minor/moderate damage. They don't usually have as a symmetrical growth habit, older trees are more crooked/knarled. They don't sucker but seed but aren't really invasive. I have tried seed off a couple local trees but never had any germinate. The one tree seeds heavily but there are never any seedlings around it.

I read awhile back that someone was grafting C. glauca onto C. equisetifolia to get a sterile, non-suckering AP.

[SubTropicRay]

As hated as they are by some, I can't imagine what Florida and the Caribbean would look like without them.  Of all the native exotics, this is the one I can tolerate the most.

[ruskinPalms]

Scary headlines. I hope we don't see anything that cold for a good long time to come. Probably inevitable though. Enjoy your cocos while you can! What I have discovered about Cocos is that it can survive the upper 20's every few years which is normal for central FL, but they cannot survive the big freezes. That goes for about 90% of the zone 10+ palms anyway. And 90% of the time, Cocos are totally appropriate for here... Cocos will grow just fine here for many years. It will take record setting freezes (like 26F and below) to take them out completely. That being said, those same record freezes may just as easily take out a queen palm. So, in light of that, plant all the Cocos you want in central FL, the same freeze that kills the Cocos may very well kill the Queens!  Now, take this with a grain of salt. Cocos will only grow within maybe 5 miles from the gulf or bay and/or in heavily urbanized/suburbanized areas in central FL. They will NOT make it 10 to 15 miles inland in the boonies in central FL. Also, queens are bound to look better after a FROST, which is pretty common in a lot of areas (Hey, no real frost on the palms, plants or grass here for the 2 years I have lived here so far!!!) in central Florida. Cocos does not care for frost on the fronds while I guess queens are supposed to take this better.  

Anyway, back on topic, I hope record setting freezes stay away for long enough for me to see my Cocos fruit. Longer preferably!

[ruskinPalms]

There are tons of Aussie pines all over the place here. I am guessing they were used as wind breaks in this very agricultural area where I live. By the way, they were all over the beaches in HI too when I visited. The beach ones are the ones with the annoying mace ball shaped seeds that hurt the feet while walking on the sand! Most of the ones near me are the suckering type so they probably were blasted to the ground in the 80s freezes and recovered from the roots.

[Eric in Orlando]

I agree, I like Australian Pines, its a nice noise when the wind rustles the foliage. The main road on Sanibel Island was lined with old ones and added to the atmosphere. I think Hurricane Charley took most of them out.

I have read now that these have become the favored nesting trees of the Everglades Kite, and endangered bird. They used to favor nesting in native Pinus but these are slow to recover after hurricanes while Casuarina come back quick. What a dilema, an endengered raptor nesting in an exotic pest.

[Eric in Orlando]

(ruskinPalms @ Apr. 08 2008,21:21)

QUOTE

Scary headlines. I hope we don't see anything that cold for a good long time to come. Probably inevitable though. Enjoy your cocos while you can! What I have discovered about Cocos is that it can survive the upper 20's every few years which is normal for central FL, but they cannot survive the big freezes. That goes for about 90% of the zone 10+ palms anyway. And 90% of the time, Cocos are totally appropriate for here... Cocos will grow just fine here for many years. It will take record setting freezes (like 26F and below) to take them out completely. That being said, those same record freezes may just as easily take out a queen palm. So, in light of that, plant all the Cocos you want in central FL, the same freeze that kills the Cocos may very well kill the Queens!  Now, take this with a grain of salt. Cocos will only grow within maybe 5 miles from the gulf or bay and/or in heavily urbanized/suburbanized areas in central FL. They will NOT make it 10 to 15 miles inland in the boonies in central FL. Also, queens are bound to look better after a FROST, which is pretty common in a lot of areas (Hey, no real frost on the palms, plants or grass here for the 2 years I have lived here so far!!!) in central Florida. Cocos does not care for frost on the fronds while I guess queens are supposed to take this better.  

Anyway, back on topic, I hope record setting freezes stay away for long enough for me to see my Cocos fruit. Longer preferably!

I agree

Just as a reminder, a month after the 89 freeze here at Leu Gardens...

[Walter John]

This has to be the widest thread in the world. You sure that newspaper pic is large enough ?

I wonder if there were extreme weather conditions around the globe then.

Actually, the real reason for this cold event, was the fact that the Beatles had just released their first single "Love me do" late 1962 signalling and sentencing USA music dominance to the history books, which people rarely, if ever read.

Wal, music snark and palm enthusiast  :cool:

[Derekjp]

Thanks for posting this article.  I really hope this was an anomaly and doesn't ever happen again or I might need to move further south.

[spockvr6]

(Wal @ Apr. 09 2008,00:47)

QUOTE

This has to be the widest thread in the world. You sure that newspaper pic is large enough ?

I did have one camera setting wider  

Obviously, I made the pics large so the fine print could be read They were not legible at normal 640x480 size.

[PalmGuyWC]

I just re-read this thread and it brought up old memorys. In 1962 I was a young soulder based at Fort Myres Virginia, and I walked every morning to the Pentagon where I worked in a data processing unit in the basement of the Pantagon. I have no memory of the freeze because it was cold in Washington every winter anyway. What I do remember was the Cuban missel crisis, and that was the reason I had been drafted into the army. I think I was 22 years old at the time.

There were headlines every day about the missels in Cuba and how we were approching the possibility of a necular war. Nikata was ratteling his sabers, and the whole earth was shaking. Just a day or two before Kennedy gave his famous speach, the Washington Post published a diagram on the front page of the size of the crater if a hydrogen bomb hit the White House. I was living right on the edge of the crater, not to mention that if one hit the Pentagon, I would have been in the crater. This definately got my attention.

I remember the night Kennedy gave his speach announcing a blockade of Russian ships headed for Cuba. All of us solders were in our mess room glued to the TV. (It was balck and white then). Just the apperance of Kennedy with the dark circles under his eyes was enough to scare the hell out of you. He had obviously been up many nights with the crises. When he announced the blockade of Soviet ships, the hair stood up on my head, and I felt nausious. Soon after the speach, I ran for the restroom.

That was as close as we ever came to a necular war, and it turned out Nekita was bluffing, as they didn't have as many nukes as we thought they did, and their missles were highly inaccurate, but we didn't know that at the time. The Soviets turned their ships around, and things cooled off. As bad as the Florida freeze was that year, things could have been much worse.

Dick

[bubba]

Dick, You are not kidding.As a young one,it was weird.

[Steve]

Cool post. It was nice to see the weather history and Cold War history all in one day's front page.

I'd just prefer neither event happen again!

Edited May 5, 2008 by Steve

[kinzyjr]

Bay News 9 posted this article in December, 2020 about the 1962 Freeze: https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/weather/2020/12/11/the-day-tampa-froze-over

This freeze set a lot of records, one being the record low of 20F for Lakeland, FL.  This was later tied by the January 1985 freeze.

12131962_Freeze.docx

[palmsOrl]

On 4/7/2008 at 10:51 AM, spockvr6 said:

I dont think 1962 was as bad for the more southern and eastern FL locations as in later freezes.  WPB only dropped to 30F, Ft Lauderdale was something north of 36F (36F is the record for 12/13 set in 1957), and Miami was 35F.

 

And yes...I believe the all time record low for Ft Myers (26F) was set on 12/13/62.

 

Im surely glad I wasnt around Tarpon Springs in 1962....the 19F seen here must have decimated the area.

I think Fort Myers' all-time record low is 24F.

[palmsOrl]

On 4/9/2008 at 12:36 AM, Eric in Orlando said:

 

(ruskinPalms @ Apr. 08 2008,21:21)

QUOTE

Scary headlines. I hope we don't see anything that cold for a good long time to come. Probably inevitable though. Enjoy your cocos while you can! What I have discovered about Cocos is that it can survive the upper 20's every few years which is normal for central FL, but they cannot survive the big freezes. That goes for about 90% of the zone 10+ palms anyway. And 90% of the time, Cocos are totally appropriate for here... Cocos will grow just fine here for many years. It will take record setting freezes (like 26F and below) to take them out completely. That being said, those same record freezes may just as easily take out a queen palm. So, in light of that, plant all the Cocos you want in central FL, the same freeze that kills the Cocos may very well kill the Queens!  Now, take this with a grain of salt. Cocos will only grow within maybe 5 miles from the gulf or bay and/or in heavily urbanized/suburbanized areas in central FL. They will NOT make it 10 to 15 miles inland in the boonies in central FL. Also, queens are bound to look better after a FROST, which is pretty common in a lot of areas (Hey, no real frost on the palms, plants or grass here for the 2 years I have lived here so far!!!) in central Florida. Cocos does not care for frost on the fronds while I guess queens are supposed to take this better.  

 

Anyway, back on topic, I hope record setting freezes stay away for long enough for me to see my Cocos fruit. Longer preferably!

I agree

 

Just as a reminder, a month after the 89 freeze here at Leu Gardens...

 

 

 

Even in Port Charlotte, once one gets a few blocks from the water, it looks like Central Florida (though Port Charlotte is on the edge of Central Florida).  Right on the water, it might as well be Miami.

[Steve the palmreader]

Anniversary of the historic freeze , 18 Tampa. 26 Ft. Myers and 12 Jax

[Jimbean]

It got down to 27F at Patrick AFB and I couldn't find a record for Melbourne for that day. 

[kinzyjr]

1 hour ago, Jimbean said:

It got down to 27F at Patrick AFB and I couldn't find a record for Melbourne for that day. 

The Weather Forecast Office recorded 22F that day.  The full list of station records for each freeze event is available here:

https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/66320-florida-freeze-and-weather-station-data/