Florida winter 2023-2024

[flplantguy]

The storm of the century earned its moniker thats for sure. The weather channel had a show about it and some hikers in shorts and tee shirts on the appalachian trail were caught off guard. There was storm surge damage here too and a record low just above freezing after.  I think we have posts about it here too like the papers from the big freezes and other strange events that effect our gardens and us.  Hopefully a one off too😳

[flplantguy]

Feb. Temperature data is in, winter may be leaving us but it was a cooler one for much of the penninsula.  Three days of lows in the mid 30s for me that felt a bit much for late Feb but its march and now in the 80s.

[kinzyjr]

9 hours ago, Matthew92 said:

It's crazy to think that 31 years ago Northwest FL got into the low 20's and had accumulating snowfall. It blows my mind that it got that cold this late. That would be devasting today as many people have become accustomed to planting their tropicals and tender annuals now in February (or even January) with these milder winters. 

https://x.com/burgwx/status/1635052587463630848?s=20

I remember that one quite well.  Nothing like shoveling 4 feet of fresh snow out of your driveway multiple times a day.

[Matthew92]

Yikes, low forecast for Monday night in Crestview, FL (usually matches temps at my location) is 34 deg. 

[PalmatierMeg]

The heat is on. This winter is so over. Now we face 3 more months of heat-fueled drought. We need a "normal" rainy season.

[kinzyjr]

21 hours ago, Matthew92 said:

Yikes, low forecast for Monday night in Crestview, FL (usually matches temps at my location) is 34 deg. 

Hope the cold stops for you all up there.  We may brush the 40s overnight Monday or Tuesday.

[JLM]

Sigh 

[kinzyjr]

1 hour ago, JLM said:

Sigh

Looks like rain and then chilly for the next couple of nights.  After a bunch of 90F days, mid-to-high 40s is going to feel arctic.

[JLM]

44 minutes ago, kinzyjr said:

Looks like rain and then chilly for the next couple of nights.  After a bunch of 90F days, mid-to-high 40s is going to feel arctic.

Definitely. We have been having upper 70’s and low 80’s up this way for the past several weeks. There’s been a morning or two that was in the low 40’s but otherwise it’s been fairly mild. Hopefully this is the last cold snap. 

[kinzyjr]

On 2/12/2024 at 2:32 PM, Jimbean said:

It looks like my low for the season was 41.5F.  Warmer than usual.  

Ended up with a minimum of 37F in the open yard and 38F in some of the sheltered spots like the coconut bed.  Roughly +6F over the average in the Lakeland UHI and highland areas and +9F over the average at the airport.  I was holding out hope for the first-ever 40F+ winter here, but one night in January spoiled the party.

[SubTropicRay]

On 3/15/2024 at 4:00 PM, PalmatierMeg said:

The heat is on. This winter is so over. Now we face 3 more months of heat-fueled drought. We need a "normal" rainy season.

We need an above normal rainy season.

[flplantguy]

My ultimate low was an advective 33 in the open, 36 in the sheltered trees for a 10b winter in the garden section and solid 10a in the open- that should be warm 9b (average of 29).  Surprising to me that only one night was cold enough to cause concern (with three sudden stratospheric warmings and a polar vortex event in texas again thats odd) and no frost except on the cars in late Feb. Not as warm for the ultimate low as further south and pretty gloomy this winter but the rain is welcome.  I get a test chill down for a Verschaffeltia tonight to see how it handles 46 under cover, maybe 44 so it may not be too happy with that.

[Matthew92]

 

 

[flplantguy]

Warmer than forecast last night at 50, tonight will make up for it though with 41 forecasted now. The last gasp is a bit colder than expected here so far, then nice weather after.  Last two years had a near freeze here in march so its typical.

[JLM]

My low for Tuesday morning was 32.2F with virtually no frost. This morning (Wednesday) was 37F with widespread frost on rooftops and vehicles and patchy frost on grass.
 

My bananas, which have been hard at work these past few weeks at regrowing, got burnt. Not happy about it, but also didn’t expect a freeze either. 
 

No frost threats in the foreseeable future here in NW FL, hopefully it’ll stay that way as we close out March and head into April. Really after the first week of April we are in the clear in most years.