florida Florida Winter 2024-2025

[D. Morrowii]

@SubTropicRay If the forecast stays in the 40s (its already bumped warmer) I’ll probably do something for the more sensitive stuff. Hopefully it stays above 50 so I don’t have to make any decisions 

[kinzyjr]

8 hours ago, D. Morrowii said:

Apple Weather is predicting mid 40s in my area late next week.

Looking at roughly the same here at the current time, but it will change I'm sure.

[D. Morrowii]

1 hour ago, kinzyjr said:

Looking at roughly the same here at the current time, but it will change I'm sure.

A warning shot..😀

[flplantguy]

Shady hills and the local airport hit 45 this morning, colder than elsewhere as expected. 52-53 here. I hope that 7 to 8 degree bump is there in the coldest night this year too, its variable and dependant on a few things and is a larger gap early season.  But a 28 there would be 34 here if that holds🤞.  Greenhouse sides going up this weekend. Next weekend is calling for temps like an average January day, cool season is finally here!

[JLM]

Low of 42F this morning, light and very sporadic frost on rooftops, but otherwise I did not see any other frost. Not sure if there was any on the bananas or not, guess we will find out in the coming days. Expecting 41F tonight, and 39F tomorrow night. Frost potential definitely exists tomorrow night, so I will be preparing accordingly.

[kinzyjr]

It will be a chilly stretch here no matter who you ask, but it should be in the rear view mirror soon.

If you're close to Ichetucknee Springs State Park off between Gainesville and Lake City, then you'll probably see a frost tonight.

[flplantguy]

Its 63 here now with onshore wind (same as miami😳), but go inland just a bit and it drops off pretty fast.  Upper 40s already in some spots and 45 at the airport in brooksville. After the wind calms it evens out, but on a really cold night that time delay near the coast could be the difference between damage and death on some things.  A few hours below vs 12 hours below freezing can help keep the meristem alive in some marginal plants.  But when it sticks around a while and stays calm that goes caput, the next two nights will match the 45 here too with offshore flow.

[Looking Glass]

Definitely fairly chilly here another night for this 3 day stretch, but rather pleasant for humans.  A nice little break seemingly early in the season.  

[kinzyjr]

The zip file attached contains the Florida NWS airport records for last night. There were some oddball results, like Vero Beach (KVRB) recording a similar low to Tallahassee (KTLH), Melbourne (KMLB) recording a similar low to Flagler Airport (KFIN), and none of the Orlando sites (KMCO, KORL) dropping below 50F while a lot of the east coast went into the 40s.

The Lakeland Airport (KLAL) was forecast to go down to 47F-48F by the major sites, but dropped to 42.8F, or possibly lower between readings.  My stations recorded between 45F and 46F throughout the yard.

20241122_NWS.zip

[kinzyjr]

Some other interesting sites to watch:

Really Cold:

• Indian Hammock Airport: Darn near a freeze at the same latitude as Avon Park!
  • Another station near Indian Hammock Airport for backup.
  • Nearby Recreation Corporation Airport.

Really Mild:

• Salty Approach: Out on Captiva.  This likely will not go below 60F.

[flplantguy]

Just above 40 here for the low, wunderground stations inland as low as 32 in shady hills and a 30 north of weeki watchee.  Brrrr, a little colder than forecast. Temp greenhouse 54 with a small heater like last year, but a larger lean-to style with added house heat🤞.

[Steve the palmreader]

10 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

Some other interesting sites to watch:

Really Cold:

• Indian Hammock Airport: Darn near a freeze at the same latitude as Avon Park!
  • Another station near Indian Hammock Airport for backup.
  • Nearby Recreation Corporation Airport.

Really Mild:

• Salty Approach: Out on Captiva.  This likely will not go below 60F.

52 on Pine Island  with a cool breeze

[kinzyjr]

14 minutes ago, Steve the palmreader said:

52 on Pine Island  with a cool breeze

My stations recorded temperatures between 43.7F and 44.1F here.  The lowest hourly record at the airport is 44.6F.  Our airport really needs to start including the 6-hour min/max like other sites.

26 minutes ago, flplantguy said:

Just above 40 here for the low, wunderground stations inland as low as 32 in shady hills and a 30 north of weeki watchee.  Brrrr, a little colder than forecast. Temp greenhouse 54 with a small heater like last year, but a larger lean-to style with added house heat🤞.

I had wondered if anywhere near Spring Hill/Brooksville would actually freeze.  It looks like some of the cold pockets did.

[RedRabbit]

15 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

Some other interesting sites to watch:

Really Cold:

• Indian Hammock Airport: Darn near a freeze at the same latitude as Avon Park!
  • Another station near Indian Hammock Airport for backup.
  • Nearby Recreation Corporation Airport.

Really Mild:

• Salty Approach: Out on Captiva.  This likely will not go below 60F.

Nice find on the Captiva station. I’m still wondering if that area is really z11. 

[flplantguy]

Second night similar to the first inland with light freezes on spots in Citrus county.  41 here for 8+hours.  Brrr but nothing to protect for yet.  Screenshots from saturday morning.

[kinzyjr]

This is probably the last of the inordinately chilly nights for this go-around, but Black Friday and the following Monday look to bring another cool-down.  The records for the airports are in the attached ZIP file.  Florida had its first recorded snowfall this season at the Inverness airport (KINF).

20241124_NWS.zip

[D. Morrowii]

Here in Merritt Island we ended up with 52,48.7 and 49.5 for the lows Spent a good amount of time in the 50s at night but the days have been nice and warm. 

[flplantguy]

Three nights in a row of low 40s is lower than the official forecast on two of the three by about 5 degrees. That means if we have a radiational cooling event i would shave 5 degrees off the forecast and base my decisions on that just in case. Frost is common at 37, so if thats the forecast assume 32 and cover stuff🤷‍♂️

[flplantguy]

Long range models are showing a possible long track cross polar event across the eastern US for december with a "Hudson bay vortex" (an offshoot of the polar vortex) setting up. Apparently that pattern tends to be stable and repeat in subsequent years, im thinking like 2010? Hopefully not so cold but its possible with the pattern set up if it can drop down far enough.  Hopefully its wrong muted but its time to be ready for cold weather protection anyway.  Watching the AO, PNA, and NAO for indicators and it also looks to be a favorable pattern setting up there (negative east, positive west means cold air from the north).  Neutral ENSO too for what its worth.

[flplantguy]

Apparently a sudden drop into the 40s for multiple days is enough to do minor damage to some of the palms in the yard. Carpoxylon and a few former dypsis showing some light browning on the horizontal leaf surfaces or new tips of an emerging frond.  Was not expecting that.  Hopefully (likely) its just the sudden change from warm to cold and shows why early season fronts are more dangerous than later.

[kinzyjr]

52 minutes ago, flplantguy said:

Apparently a sudden drop into the 40s for multiple days is enough to do minor damage to some of the palms in the yard. Carpoxylon and a few former dypsis showing some light browning on the horizontal leaf surfaces or new tips of an emerging frond.  Was not expecting that.  Hopefully (likely) its just the sudden change from warm to cold and shows why early season fronts are more dangerous than later.

This is the scenario @SubTropicRay mentioned earlier - quick changes in temperature causing premature damage to foliage.

[RiverCityRichard]

I noticed the same thing here with Eucalytpus Deglupta. We hit a low of 39 during the last front, and that sudden drop from lows in the low 70’s caused some leaf damage even absent of frost.

[SeanK]

Probably 42° to 45° along the I4 corridor the next few nights.

[JLM]

33.6F this morning with light patchy frost on rooftops. Bananas were sitting at 37F, which was only 3F higher than outside, which is not good enough. I have some edits to do, and some things i am planning on doing with it, such as adding lights to all the trunks.

Expecting 32F tonight, 35F tomorrow night, then 33F for the two following nights. This would be considered long duration, at least compared to what we are use to down here haha

[flplantguy]

Lower than forecast again here, expecting mid 30s the start of the week if the forecast and trend are correct, 38 and 37 could be frosty especially on rooftops and cars.  It does feel like a long duration cool spell here too outside of a 2 day gap between below average temps.

[Looking Glass]

Down here is dry.  Essentially no rain for coming up on 2 months.  Another round of cooling starting this week, but still day temps in the 70s.  Raining just off shore of course. 

[kinzyjr]

2 hours ago, flplantguy said:

Lower than forecast again here, expecting mid 30s the start of the week if the forecast and trend are correct, 38 and 37 could be frosty especially on rooftops and cars.  It does feel like a long duration cool spell here too outside of a 2 day gap between below average temps.

Roughly the same predicted here, with at least a chance we'll dip into the high 30s one or two days.  The predictions for Tuesday have the lows between 36F and 41F.  We'll see what we end up with after the dust settles.  The NAO graphic from the Weather channel is below:

54 minutes ago, Looking Glass said:

Down here is dry.  Essentially no rain for coming up on 2 months.  Another round of cooling starting this week, but still day temps in the 70s.  Raining just off shore of course. 

We received ~0.25 inches here, but overall, the next couple of months are looking pretty desert-like as usual.

[Looking Glass]

15 minutes ago, kinzyjr said:

Roughly the same predicted here, with at least a chance we'll dip into the high 30s one or two days.  The predictions for Tuesday have the lows between 36F and 41F.  We'll see what we end up with after the dust settles.  The NAO graphic from the Weather channel is below:

We received ~0.25 inches here, but overall, the next couple of months are looking pretty desert-like as usual.

We lucked out a bunch the last few years with good rains in November and December to tide us over.  A little rain goes a long way in this cooler weather.  No luck this year.  Starting out dry, headed for dryer. 

[kinzyjr]

I'll probably have to do two NWS captures to grab all of the airport records for the number of cool days we're having this week.  In the meantime, here is the Preliminary Climate Summary for November:

https://www.weather.gov/media/tbw/climate/summaries/Nov_Aut2024_pre.pdf

[SeanK]

Cool morning for all.

About 37° across I10, 41° along I4. East coast breaks 50° at Fort Pierce but along the west coast, it doesn't get that warm until Marco and southward.

Largo to Key West are 64° to 68° so that's the place to be this week.

[flplantguy]

35 this morning, 50 in the greenhouse. Once again 5 degrees colder than forecast so im thinking a light freeze here tonight or wednesday morning. Then a warm up.

[Merlyn]

@flplantguy similar temps here, 37.2F with a light frost on the grass this morning.  That's the coldest of the year for me, so far!  It has been mid 40s for a couple of nights recently, but not into the 30s. 

It looks like I need to get the batteries changed in a couple of the Ambient Weather sensors.  I made the mistake of leaving alkaline batteries in a couple of them too long, and they all started leaking and corroding the contacts.  The good news is that I tested NiMH batteries in them and they seem to work great!  The only downside is that NiMH batteries self-discharge, so I just have to go swap out and recharge them every 6-9 months or so.  But they don't leak!!!

[flplantguy]

I bought new sensors, and i bet the old ones corroded and thats why they wont send data to the station now. The three new ones are better design for the elements and work great so far.  The only frost i saw was open low spots in ditches, and possibly my far corner of the yard that also the lowest and most open (car top and windshield too, but not engine block). Inland in shady hills was 27 in multiple spots, 30 at the Brooksville airport.  Spots a handfull away were 37 and above 40 in the heat island spots. My place seems to parallel beacon woods in hudson, or spots between SR 52 and Hudson Ave near the smaller lakes as you go inland, all surrounding the cold spot in Shady Hills.  No screenshots as i was running late, but i will attempt some in the morning for the next round. 

[Merlyn]

I typed too soon on the "light frost" comment.  About 15 minutes later the grass was completely white and it looked like it had snowed on the roof.  But it's up to 66F now and full sun.  The official airport temp was 48F at 7AM while my house was 37.2F. 

I cleaned out two of the sensors again, the alkaline batteries had just started leaking.  I'm definitely never putting alkalines in those sensors again, it'll either be lithium or NiMH.  I'm probably trying NiMH in these two to see if they will still work okay.

[RiverCityRichard]

Hit a minimum of 37.9 in the open lower side of my yard, with a light frost on the vehicles and roof. 39.6 in the two spots under canopy. Forecast low per the weather channel was 41, and 40 per Apple’s weather app. Was already 44 when I left for work at 0730. If that same differences from the forecast applies tonight I’ll probably have 35 and heavier frost in the open area of my yard tomorrow morning.

[kinzyjr]

The airport records for the first half of the cold week are in the ZIP file.  Here, it was 41F for ~15 minutes, literally.  The next lowest temperature recorded was ~43F.  The low of 41F here was 3:30AM vs. the airport where it reached the same temperature at ~6AM and stuck around until almost 7AM.  It's only 7PM and temperatures in some parts of the area are already in the 40s.  Those areas are almost certainly going to be in the 30s at some point the next two days.  The NWS figures 39F outside of the Lakeland UHI both nights, while Weather.com is showing 41F tonight and 39F tomorrow night.  Either way, it shouldn't be killing temperatures, thankfully.  Those will probably come between Christmas and Valentine's Day this year.

20241202_NWS.zip

[flplantguy]

41 here and holding steady, over 50 on the water and 35 inland from here.  Light or no winds and the forecast is to hold steady where it's at most of the night. I hope so because i did not cover anything.  Last night deformed some sanchezia leaves under the biggest palmetto but thats it, and those are a barometer plant for cold.  The ones in the sunken gardens melted at 37 in somewhat wet heavy soil, but kept dry they can take lower and dont die back until they freeze.  Thats consistant with the 35 degree reading last night, and the 33 (under oak canopy) and wind mine in Largo brushed off in 2018 (open back yard was 27), along with tons of other calm cold nights in the mid 30s there.  At least i know that 35 was pretty accurate, as unfortunately low it was compared to many on here and the most ideal spots in the area. 

[flplantguy]

33 here and some frost on the one plant i looked at quickly (copperleaf). Ice coating on cars obviously but nothing visible elsewhere.  30 at the airport which briefly hit 27 the night before.  Quick dips are one thing but if it stays chilly the difference is lower.  Not what i was hoping for but at least its not the same number of actual freezes as the airport station.  Pretty sure a freeze and frost tonight here based on the trend. Coldest spots shown in ghe screenshots here.

[Merlyn]

This morning was definitely colder than yesterday.  I put the three cleaned sensors on the same paving stone in the backyard, two of them read within a few tenths of a degree of each other.  The third is about 2.5F warmer.  My Fluke optical thermometer suggests the lower temp ones are more accurate, but it looks like I'll have to do the refrigerator & freezer calibration tests again to see which one is right and wrong.

Depending on which one is correct, it was either 33.4F or 36F in the backyard this morning, with heavy frost.

[SubTropicRay]

All the talk about La Niña and a warmer winter is BS.  This week's prolonged cooldown has brought lows below anything we had during last year's hyped, "cooler" than normal winter.