On this day 1989

[RJ]

From Bay News Ch9:

On this date in 1989, 30 years ago, one of the coldest weather events in the nation's history brought record cold to Florida. A dusting of snow was reported from Tampa to Daytona Beach. Agriculture was devastated with billions of dollars in damage.

[PalmatierMeg]

I lived in No. VA then but remember reading about all the crop destruction.

[RJ]

17 minutes ago, PalmatierMeg said:

I lived in No. VA then but remember reading about all the crop destruction.

I lived outside Boston at the time, but my folks had a condo in Stuart, FL. Shortly after in February we visited and I clearly remember everything burnt, even on the islands where their condo was. 

[RedRabbit]

I was two years old and have no memory of it. lol

Melbourne really got it bad at 22! It actually doesn’t look that bad for the west coast. I see Tampa was 24f which is just 1f colder than 2010. 

[Palmaceae]

I remember it well, even saw a few snow flurries, I lived in St Pete at the time and lost a lot of palms, but then again I lost a lot of palms the entire decade of the 80's!

[kinzyjr]

I hadn't made it to Florida yet.  Where I grew up, the whole year was chilly.  I can remember going to my baseball games in a jacket... in June, July and August.  The 19F in Winter Haven either was record low for December or tied it.  According to all of the records I have for KLAL (Lakeland Linder), the official low during the 1989 Christmas Freeze was 21F.  Hope to live a long life and never see anything like it again.

1989_freeze_extreme-cold-factsheet.pdf

[Silas_Sancona]

Intriguing how almost exactly a year later.. California would experience one of its most significant freeze events.  Found an article published by the L.A. Times titled " Growers Take Stock of Losses as Freeze Wanes"  Published on Dec. 25th, 1990 at 12am.

Remember that freeze well since San Jose crashed to the low 20s, with some of the colder spots south of downtown bottoming out in the mid/ upper teens.. Low in San Francisco reached 32F, Oakland,.. 34F.  Los Angeles reached 35F, which was two degrees shy of the record low for the date, set in 1879. Wasn't growing anything close to "tropical" but remember everyone covering Citrus and Avocado trees around town.  Thinking this was the freeze that took out a rather large, ( for the area )  Erythrina coralloides that had grown in a yard, close to where i went to Elementary School for years. Believe there are still some Kings ( Archontophoenix cunninghamiana ) around town that survived this event as well.