Look Out Florida, It Is Coming Again

[Trópico]

36°F at 11 PM. Winds died down considerably. It's going to be a long night ahead.

[JayW]

29* this morning... not too bad. I'm thinking that tomorrow will be the "cold" day.

[junglegalfla]

Bottomed out at 41.7 a little while ago. Slighty above the forecast. I hope tonight/tomorrow morning isn't too bad either.

[gsytch]

Just nipped 39.7f at 6am but was in the lower 40's since 1am. Has not got above 46F yet! Winds are up some, gusting to 15mph or so...but if they die down tonight, it is trouble. Tomorrow night is another worry as it becomes really calm. Lord let this all go away soon!

[Don]

26.6 last night calling for 23 tonight hopefully back to normal there after.

[edbrown_III]

38 F here in Jax where I live --- I am going out to fire up the heaters.

good luck to every one.

Best regards

Ed

[_Keith]

Sorry to always be the forebearer of bad news guys, but I am upwind. If I smell it, likely you are going to smell it too.

[DoomsDave]

Oh, heavens.

Hope it's a false alarm, but, well . . . .

There are no false prayers.

Hope it's not as bad as feared.

If not, hope the recovery is faster than expected.

[Trópico]

My thermometer station reading is 28°F at 12:58 AM, but the local temp for Orlando is still 36°F

Edited December 28, 2010 by Trópico

[junglegalfla]

It's officially below freezing here. A balmy 30.1 with a couple hours to go till warm up This is cruel to get blasted like this then have a heat wave roll in on Wed

[Tampa Scott]

Went below 32f here around 330am and sitting at 29f at this time. Final low will probably end up at 27f.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Tampa Scott

[Moose]

Went below 32f here around 330am and sitting at 29f at this time. Final low will probably end up at 27f.

Scott - how are your crotons holding up with the cold weather and wind ?

Ron.

[Steve the palmreader]

Burr On Pine Island FL. its 37 degrees with Frost

[gsytch]

Fell to 29.3f just before sunrise with the first frost on the car in driveway. Oddly, have escaped frost til now. Fell below freezing when I awakened at 330am. It was just above freezing before 3am. At 749am it is still below freezing at 30.8f. I hope it warms up today because tonight will be a repeat with the calm winds and radiational cooling. The greenhouse stayed at 41f. That is great for everything in there. Orchids don't mind that at all! I have a small heater in there but the winds created little gaps I was trying to clog. One more day! Then 70;s.........................

[gsytch]

Planes are ground at Tampa Airport because of icing. They have no de-icers, so they have to wait to take off! Funny.

[JayW]

I heard Cedar Key or Brooksville bottomed out at 16F? Our low was 21F which was 1* warmer than last weeks cold event.

[sonoranfans]

29 degrees 8+ hours below 32 degrees, and a good frost noted starting at 1am. Good thing I wrapped things up, and burned the little charcoal grill under the plumeria/archonto tent. This "mild winter" is just another reminder of the inaccuracy of atmospheric science, miserably failing another "test" of the predictive ability of the atmospheric science community. Florida is on track for the coldest December in its measured history after a "mild winter prediction". Most scientists would be fired for being so woefully inaccurate, companies would go out of business if they listened to them. In their defense, they have a very difficult job and they rely almost excuslively on simulations, which is a real issue for any scientist. I have learned in my career as a scientist not to trust simulations on complex problems. "Its all we got" is not good enough most of the time. The ability to predict our climate in even the short term future is obviously poor, kind of like blood letting in the early days of medical science.

[Trópico]

My low was 23.5°F at 7:39 AM. Heavy frost everywhere.

[Eric in Orlando]

We had 29F here, 31F the night before. If this is a 'warmer" winter hate to see when a colder than normal is predicted.

I am totally sick of winter already. Maybe we need to fire some missiles into the sun to get the sunspots strted again !!!

[cobra2326]

It was 21.3 here in Spring Hill this morning. There was frost all over bushes and trees, it looked like Christmas! Brooksville AP is only a few miles from my house, but it's in a low spot, so it gets colder there on still nights. 16F was the low there.

Vandenberg AP reported "freezing fog" and "light snow" at several different points last night.

[spockvr6]

30.3F logged on my station this AM and it looks like the high won't reach 50F. Tonight looks to be a close repeat of last night :-( I'm away from home so at least I don't have to sit and watch it happen in real time. But my neighbor said there was almost no frost to be seen so hopefully that was accurate for my Croton leaves!

I too am tired of this "mild winter", which is most definitely the coldest December on record with an average temp now for the month which is likely less than 51F!

[Tampa Scott]

Went below 32f here around 330am and sitting at 29f at this time. Final low will probably end up at 27f.

Scott - how are your crotons holding up with the cold weather and wind ?

Ron.

Ron, The Crotons do not look good. Below freezing 6hrs with heavy frost. My weather station recorded a low of 28.6 (6' from ground) in the open yard.

[gsytch]

Well, I am REAL worried. After HEAVY frost this morning and 29f, it never made 50f today, again, for the 3rd day in a row. Now, at 730p it is 36.3f. They missed this BIG TIME. I mean, there is 12 hours left til sunrise. It is funny to read St Pete at 40f yet everyone in Pinellas reporting heavy frosts that required scraping. They really need to move the therm from the water's edge. Tampa Airport had icing issues but it barely hit 32F? A few miles way it was 25F? Anyway, lord help us tonight if this is dropping. It will be worse than last night's 6 hrs below freezing! The yard took all year to recover only to get zapped again! Me thinks it is really time for Azaleas, Roses and Camellias because this is too much!

[Walt]

Not only did I have my coldest night of the season, I also recorded the lowest low for the entire 13 years living here. These radiation freezes deep inland are colder than the advective ones.

All three remote sensors for my Oregon Scientific thermometer stopped working (one two years ago, one last winter, and now the last one two days ago). So, last night I recorded my low temperature using my OS base station. Wanting to get as accurate reading as I could I placed it in a small cardboard box. I then placed that box inside a slightly larger cardboard box. I then placed the boxes in a pillow case and suspended it from a support rung of a 6-feet step ladder. The thermometer was approximately four feet above the ground.

When I removed my base station later this morning it had recorded a low temperature of 20.7 degrees F. I had another thermometer at just after 7 a.m. showing 22 degrees.

Two weeks ago (and I posted same) I recorded 22.1 degrees in this same spot, but with my remote sensor. I know this morning was colder because foliage in my warmer, more protected wooded areas were damaged more than they had been from the last series of freezes (I had four nights prior to this morning where my lows were in the low to mid 20s.)

All my exposed P. selloums have been melted to the ground, and some were close to 10 feet high. Archontophoenix cunninghamiana palms that escaped damage before did not this time.

Sebring FAWN recorded a low of 27 degrees, and they typically run five degrees warmer than I do on radiational cooling nights as the site is at higher elevation than my property.

But Archbold Biological Station, almost 10 miles south of me recorded a low of 16 degrees. Palmdale FAWN 26 miles south of me recorded 20 degrees.

The above temperatures are fairly typical for low-ground locations. By contrast, though, high-ground locations ran markedly warmer. Glades Electric (power company for a portion of Highlands County) recorded a low this morning of 34 degrees. A buddy of mine who lives across the street (500 feet away) from lake June recorded a low of 36.8 degrees.

Tonight the forecast is for 26 degrees, after a high today of 61 degrees. If that holds, that will make a total of six nights so far this month where my lows were in the low to mid 20s. I've been recording low temperatures for 13 years now and this has never happened in an entire winter, let alone in one month!

[_Keith]

Sorry guys, I did give you an advanced warning. Good news from upwind is that our low for tonight is only 44, and warming into highs in the mid to upper 70s in just a few days. Relief is on the way starting tomorrow.

[Tampa Scott]

Not any warmer this am for me, 28.6 here again this morning. I went below freezing around 1am, and another morning of heavy frost.

[palmislandRandy]

Were supposed to be above 50F the rest of the week..................YIPPIE!

[gsytch]

But Scott, Tampa was only "officially" 35F? Planes were stalled again due to icing but it never hit freezing. It must be YOUR thermometer.....uh hm.....nibbled 29f here and I am about a mile off US19/coast in NPR with HEAVIEST frost I have seen. Above freezing at 8am and now a balmy 38f. It has not hit 50f since 2am on 12/26 when the front came thru.

[spockvr6]

Greg- I am with you re; Tampa AP readings. Sometimes they just don't seem to make sense. Maybe their sensor is at the bays edge?

[koolthing78]

Same with the St. Pete/Clearwater readings. Except instead of always not making sense in the same direction, this morning they recorded a low of 30, whereas yesterday morning they recorded 40. I doubt it was 10 degrees colder today (although throughout the night I could hear the traffic on Seminole Blvd, which I normally can't--it reminded me of hearing noise from the freeway on cold winter nights in Columbus). In any event, I went to the Florida botanical gardens yesterday, and only half the bananas had been completely melted, so I guess that's something (?) And the coconuts still had some green, near the very tippy tops. It actually looked better than last year, although I'm sure a lot of that's due to the really dead stuff having been taken out already.

[PalmatierMeg]

38.8 early this morning and no sign of frost. But yesterday morning was the heaviest frost we've seen since we moved here in 1993. The cover of the 63 Ranchero had 1/4" of solid ice. Never seen ice that thick in Cape Coral. But lows are supposed to top 50F through Jan. 6 so I uncovered stuff yet again. Two palms that I thought had survived winter of 2009/2010 have given up life: Hydriastele rheophytica and Pinanga javana. That makes almost 30 species I've lost to cold in the last 11 months.

[sonoranfans]

Frost again today, overnight low of 31.5F. Last night on the news they said there would be patches of frost in the area. I expect that if your local dew point/humidity was higher, the overnight low temp was higher as a high dew point gets you a higher low temp. It could be that the variable temp readings are related to variable localized moisture in the area. Drier local microclimates lead to lower temp drops, and the "patchy frost" indicates that was the case.

[Mike Evans]

Very unusual morning here in Seminole area. Very heavy Frog just before sun up. That is not a typo. It was 32 degrees with heavy fog & the most frost (frog) I have ever seen here. Visibility in some areas were ~ 200 feet. I have never seen anything like it. Luckily I have plenty of oak & royal canopy. Anyone else in St Pete see this?

[Trópico]

Wow, that is unusual. Did you see any snow flakes? We tied yesterday lows of 23.5°F, but warmed up in a hurry this time. Time to uncover and assess damage.

So we should be out of the woods if our winter is going to ever average to a "warm" winter.

[gsytch]

Just uncovered. Not bad. The broms out front (under pine/palm canopy)I will wait for. There is a HUGE Cardboard Cycad...most brown I have seen in years. It wasn't nearly this bad last year. The whole top brown and it is 15+ years old. It'll be fine by summer, but what a Bi+++ to cut that one! I actually have a begonia, sheltered growing in the ground near the greenhouse, that half is melted, half looks fine. It wasn't covered at all, just in a corner but out in the yard. Even Orchids covered by frost cloth, out on benches, look fine. Last year killed most anything sensitive so there are no losses there. Now, time to warmup ans stay that way.

[Alan_Tampa]

I saw the frog. too. Was at work till 2am and was thick in places. Also, let me say this about this recent cold event: while I think all the stuff I really worried about seems to be mostly okay, I do like getting new plants also. I need a few new plants. Lots of open real estate from last January and this December, 2010 a bad year for growing. Lettuce hope 2011 will be a kinder gentler year for all of us. I'm putting last nights frost fest down as somewhere between all is lost and no biggie, so in about a month I'll know for sure.

Alan

Best of luck to everyone!

[Walt]

I had another brutal radiational freeze here again last night. I recorded 23.9 on one thermometer and 26 on another. My wooded areas ran warmer as I saw no further damage in these areas. Stuff like majesty and king palms are fine, but I think that was because there was little frost in these areas.

The weather station on high ground for Lake Placid logged in with a low of 35 degrees. My buddy near the lake recorded 38 degrees with no frost. I've really had my fill of this low-ground area. Yet, today my high was 71 degrees, and they are calling for 80 degrees by Sunday. Well, whoppie doo! Who gives a flying flip after 50% of my garden has been wiped out! Yes, everything will come back, but I have one hell of a mess to clean up, but I'm not touch anything until after winter is over with. Now I have to look at this mess for another two months.

But on an up note, all the palms I wrapped and used heating cables or string lights on are undamaged. I uncovered everything today.

[_Rich]

Much like Walt, my low lying backyard locale saw 23f this morning. I was feeling just sadistic enough to venture out and snap some pics of the frost that was mutilating my palms....

I tried to get close-ups of the frost on individual fronds/petioles followed by a full tree shot fade out.

Livistona chinensis

[junglegalfla]

I'm seeing browning on all my palms again (except queens). Almost everything below was untouched except the usual suspects (bananas, heliconia, gingers, butterfly plants) and a few broms. Canopy seems to be the KEY. I have no room for trees because of blasted power lines. Hate to say it but I'm planting tons of queens/mules this year for temp canopy. New found love for the almighty syagrus.

Mike....email me on your best price for your biggest 6-8 plants with delivery!

[_Rich]

Next is a severely chilled Phoenix roebelenii