florida 2025-2026 Florida Winter

[kinzyjr]

This topic is started to track the winter season here in Florida as we cross our fingers that it stays mild enough to skate our favorite palms through to another growing season.  Please feel free to include screenshots and records here.  We'll add a damage thread in the Freeze Damage Data sub-forum if it becomes necessary.

The minimum here at the house on 11/01/2025 was 49F.  It appears that the airport got down closer to 48F.  Stations closer to downtown and Lake Parker stayed in the 50s.  It looks like most of Orlando stayed above 50F.  At St. Johns Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve's 2nd Anniversary, we started the morning in the mid-40s (44F-46F), depending on which area of the garden you were visiting.  

Here's to hoping we don't get a nasty freeze on top of the drought. 🤞

[kinzyjr]

Keep an eye out for next week:

 

[SeanK]

24 minutes ago, kinzyjr said:

Keep an eye out for next week:

 

I've seen the reports. Very nice this week, but mid 30s F across I10 Sunday or Monday night. 

[D. Morrowii]

Ugh, a bit early for 40s…,

[JJPalmer]

Latest Euro for Wednesday morning (looks much higher res on my phone, apologies):

[kinzyjr]

11 minutes ago, JJPalmer said:

Latest Euro for Wednesday morning (looks much higher res on my phone, apologies):

Looks like potential frost down to Ocala and a freeze in Crestview at this point, subject to get worse as we near the actual event.

[kinzyjr]

Some areas could set a record in regard to lowest daytime high during this event:

https://weather.com/forecast/regional/video/arctic-front-early-taste-winter-sunday-monday-tuesday

[OutpostPalms]

Gah,  30s for the northern gulf coast next week. Hopefully no frost or freeze in my garden. This is too soon. 

[kinzyjr]

4 hours ago, OutpostPalms said:

Gah,  30s for the northern gulf coast next week. Hopefully no frost or freeze in my garden. This is too soon. 

The forecast now has 30s extending down into our neck of the woods, so keep an eye out.  We may set a daily record.

https://weather.com/forecast/regional/news/2025-11-04-cold-outbreak-midwest-south-east-first-snow

[Hurricanepalms]

Hoping we aren’t about to repeat 2009/2010. If we do, I am sure at least 50% of my garden will be compost. 

[HudsonBill]

Way to early for this. Hopefully it's one of those years it's cold early and warm later in the season. 

[RiverCityRichard]

Shouldn’t be seeing any temps starting with 3 in November, but looking like 38 here Tuesday morning. Need those people who understand polar vortexes and such sciences to start posting and fueling my anxiety.

[kinzyjr]

55 minutes ago, RiverCityRichard said:

Shouldn’t be seeing any temps starting with 3 in November, but looking like 38 here Tuesday morning. Need those people who understand polar vortexes and such sciences to start posting and fueling my anxiety.

I'll do my part.  It can get worse.  Our record low at the airport for November is 28F.  Further north it can get in the low-to-mid-20s.

[Bill H2DB]

10 hours ago, RiverCityRichard said:

Shouldn’t be seeing any temps starting with 3 in November, but looking like 38 here Tuesday morning. Need those people who understand polar vortexes and such sciences to start posting and fueling my anxiety.

  I'm not sure of where in Volusia County that you are located , but here is a chart for the month of November for the Daytona Beach area .

   The official recording station for much of this is located at the DB Airport , out near I-95 , and is , like most data , a single location result . 

 

 

[RiverCityRichard]

12 hours ago, Bill H2DB said:

  I'm not sure of where in Volusia County that you are located , but here is a chart for the month of November for the Daytona Beach area .

   The official recording station for much of this is located at the DB Airport , out near I-95 , and is , like most data , a single location result . 

 

 

I’m in DeBary near the river. Fairly warm spot compared to most of west Volusia. I appreciate the chart. I guess the good thing there is the record lows for November don’t necessarily coincide with the historic freeze years, 1962, 1984, 1989, 2010, etc.

[Maddox Gardening-youtube]

AccuWeather says 37 and 38 f degrees  on two separate days. The apple wheather channel says 32 in Jax already luckily the wheather channel is mostly wrong

[SeanK]

Always a bright side; nobody lives in Defuniak Springs, the icebox of Florida. Zone 8b with notable z7 winters over the past 50 years.

[PalmBossTampa]

On 11/2/2025 at 11:06 AM, kinzyjr said:

This topic is started to track the winter season here in Florida as we cross our fingers that it stays mild enough to skate our favorite palms through to another growing season.  Please feel free to include screenshots and records here.  We'll add a damage thread in the Freeze Damage Data sub-forum if it becomes necessary.

The minimum here at the house on 11/01/2025 was 49F.  It appears that the airport got down closer to 48F.  Stations closer to downtown and Lake Parker stayed in the 50s.  It looks like most of Orlando stayed above 50F.  At St. Johns Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve's 2nd Anniversary, we started the morning in the mid-40s (44F-46F), depending on which area of the garden you were visiting.  

Here's to hoping we don't get a nasty freeze on top of the drought. 🤞

It was 46 degrees in Lithia on 11/01/2025. Had a chilly end to kids baseball season @ 8:30 am start 

[PalmatierMeg]

On 11/6/2025 at 2:54 PM, Hurricanepalms said:

Hoping we aren’t about to repeat 2009/2010. If we do, I am sure at least 50% of my garden will be compost. 

Disastrous winter back then. Cape Coral hit its worst record low since we moved here in 1993: 28.5F. I lost 30+ species of palms. Also, on 01/10 it rained for the first and only time below 50F and daytime temps fell into the mid-30s.

[PalmatierMeg]

Our predicted low for Wednesday has been dropped to 40F. Dig out the coats.

[JLM]

Looking at a low of 38F tonight, and a low of 28F tomorrow night. We have gotten next to no introduction to the cold this season. Lowest I've observed so far is 40F. To make matters worse, I had a high of 84F just yesterday. This is gonna be a shock to the system.

[kinzyjr]

18 hours ago, SeanK said:

Always a bright side; nobody lives in Defuniak Springs, the icebox of Florida. Zone 8b with notable z7 winters over the past 50 years.

I think we have a few folks from Crestview on the forums.  Crestview is known as "Florida's Icebox".  Both are known to get chilly, but Crestview wins this round handily:

On 11/6/2025 at 2:54 PM, Hurricanepalms said:

Hoping we aren’t about to repeat 2009/2010. If we do, I am sure at least 50% of my garden will be compost. 

7 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Disastrous winter back then. Cape Coral hit its worst record low since we moved here in 1993: 28.5F. I lost 30+ species of palms. Also, on 01/10 it rained for the first and only time below 50F and daytime temps fell into the mid-30s.

I remember that one well.  It seemed like the entire winter was below average and punctuated with bitter cold for almost the entire first two weeks of January.  Then December 2010 rolled around and we got two or three cold fronts in rapid succession again.  Don't miss it and hoping no repeats.

7 hours ago, PalmBossTampa said:

It was 46 degrees in Lithia on 11/01/2025. Had a chilly end to kids baseball season @ 8:30 am start 

Those are the days where you get the bat through the strike zone fast!

---------------------

The forecast here is for 34F-36F after the projections started with low 40s.  We're basically taking a direct hit with the trajectory of the cold snap.   I can definitely admit to being spoiled by the mild falls where it didn't get cold until at least Christmas. 

[JLM]

2 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

I think we have a few folks from Crestview on the forums.  Crestview is known as "Florida's Icebox".  Both are known to get chilly, but Crestview wins this round handily:

I remember that one well.  It seemed like the entire winter was below average and punctuated with bitter cold for almost the entire first two weeks of January.  Then December 2010 rolled around and we got two or three cold fronts in rapid succession again.  Don't miss it and hoping no repeats.

Those are the days where you get the bat through the strike zone fast!

---------------------

The forecast here is for 34F-36F after the projections started with low 40s.  We're basically taking a direct hit with the trajectory of the cold snap.   I can definitely admit to being spoiled by the mild falls where it didn't get cold until at least Christmas. 

I believe the difference between Crestview and DeFuniak Springs is likely a forecasting discrepancy between NWS MOB and TAE. MOB has an area of low 20s extending up to the Okaloosa/Walton line, then on TAE's side it is much warmer. Given the type of airmass we are dealing with, I tend to side with MOBs depiction, and would assume DeFuniak Springs would be at least getting down closer to 24F-25F range rather than 27F-28F. Doesnt seem like a big deal, but for some plants, its a matter of life or death.

[SeanK]

It's about 34° in the ATL 'burbs at 05:30.

Cold front sits above I4, from Tampa to Daytona.

 

[Merlyn]

Right now they are saying 36F with 15mph winds in NW Orlando...which means I might get close to freezing.  The Sanford airport is generally 3 or so degrees warmer than me, since it's buffered by Lake Monroe and the urban heat island.  I plan to pull about 20 pots into the garage this evening, but everything else will just have to suffer.  Hopefully it'll kill off the rest of the weeds that I haven't pulled!

I just replaced the batteries in my outdoor sensors, and two of them have died over the summer.  It's old corrosion from the stupid alkaline batteries leaking.  It's lithium or NiMH in those sensors in the future!

[SubTropicRay]

Things that don't normally show much damage with these temps will surprise you.  You can't go from near record warmth in October to this without some shocked plants.  These early fronts are the most damaging.

[OutpostPalms]

Went from a high of 75 yesterday a low of 39 this morning. I brought my potted bottle and 2 foxtails in the house until tomorrow. Weather channel says 33 tonight. iPhone says 34. It’s going to be a close call for my banana plants. If they survive they should carry on for a few more weeks. 

[kinzyjr]

The headline no palm grower wants to read in the newspaper:

[JJPalmer]

Latest HRRR is more aggressive than the NWS; will be interesting to see how it verifies. Apologies for the compression-caused loss of quality in the photos. Good luck!

[UK_Palms]

I don’t understand how the forecast is that low!? The airmass overhead doesn’t look like it should support -0.5C / 31F in coastal regions of northern Florida or -5C / 23F inland in northwest Florida. The ‘uppers’ at hPa 850 value would need to be about -10C / 14F for that to happen in November.

As it stands the lowest in England so far is -2.3C / 28F at Great Dun Fell mountain summit (847m) and the lowest temp in Scotland so far is -3.9C / 25F at Kinbrace (300m) in the far northeast of Scotland. Crazy if Florida beats anywhere in the British Isles for cold minimums in mid-November!

Again I don’t think the upper air mass supports the low temperatures being forecast for Florida (not to that extent) but we will see. I will be watching closely. Hopefully it isn’t as bad as forecasted for you guys! 💚

[JJPalmer]

43 minutes ago, UK_Palms said:

I don’t understand how the forecast is that low!? The airmass overhead doesn’t look like it should support -0.5C / 31F in coastal regions of northern Florida or -5C / 23F inland in northwest Florida. The ‘uppers’ at hPa 850 value would need to be about -10C / 14F for that to happen in November.

As it stands the lowest in England so far is -2.3C / 28F at Great Dun Fell mountain summit (847m) and the lowest temp in Scotland so far is -3.9C / 25F at Kinbrace (300m) in the far northeast of Scotland. Crazy if Florida beats anywhere in the British Isles for cold minimums in mid-November!

Again I don’t think the upper air mass supports the low temperatures being forecast for Florida (not to that extent) but we will see. I will be watching closely. Hopefully it isn’t as bad as forecasted for you guys! 💚

FWIW - the HRRR is running colder than other high-res models at the moment by about 2°. While it’s consistently outperformed other models where I live now (Colorado Front Range), I can’t quite remember how it performed vs other models for Florida. Hopefully the model average wins out this time around.

[JJPalmer]

In my multi-year hiatus from this site, I may have missed the discussion of a new station on Holmes Beach / AMI. Will be an interesting test of that microclimate tonight.

[kinzyjr]

Anyone who has come to Plantae-palooza at Hollis Gardens knows that when people stop by the CFPACS booth looking to buy palms for their house here in Lakeland, I ask them in which part of town they reside.  This map illustrates why:

[JLM]

Dipped to 29F by 12:30 AM before the wind started up again, which actually forced the temperature back above freezing for about an hour before dropping back to 31F at sunrise. Without the wind, we probably would've been well on track for lower than 27F. Thankfully that did not happen.

Other spots in the panhandle didn't luck out, with some actually getting to those forecasted temperatures like Crestview at 25F. 

Further north into southern Alabama, low 20s were observed near Montgomery with one station even recording 19F just west of the city. Montgomery set a new daily record low of 23F, smashing the old record of 29F for the date.

[OutpostPalms]

Good news/Bad news. The good. My garden was frost free this morning. Bad news we froze to 29F. With the gulf waters still pushing 70F nearby me I’m surprised we saw this low of temps. Anyways, now that the damage is done we will promptly be going back to overnights in the 50s for the next couple weeks. 

[kinzyjr]

Not as cold as predicted at the house - 36F here with little variation throughout the yard.  It also hit 36F in a few of the usual warm spots in downtown and the Lake Parker area.  That much was hard to believe considering those stations were so mild at 9:00pm when I took that screenshot.  The airport was closer to 35F, which was forecast.  It seems like all of the development in the County Line Rd area and the increased air and vehicle traffic in the area have made the airport record numbers a lot closer to what we see in the city limits.

Now for the post-Halloween scare: 

• https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KFLLAKEL263
• https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KFLLAKEL258

A few of the chilly stations on the map actually recorded a freeze, with tons of others nearby sitting in the 33F+/-0.5 range.

[Merlyn]

It bottomed out at 34.7 around 7:30 here with no significant cloud cover.  The airport officially has 36F as a low.  Normally there would be frost, but apparently the dry wind kept that from happening.  I hope to see a large number of wilted weeds in the next couple of days...but no palm and cycad damage!   

[Matthew92]

Got to 29deg F here near Valparaiso, FL. Actually not as bad as I thought it would be. Since I'm on the northern edge of town sometimes I match Crestview's low (which was forecast for 26). I had prepared for 26, however, even the 29 deg low we had was very brief as it was already 43 degrees at around 8:15am. Winds kept frost from forming. 

It's crazy to see areas of Central FL got into the mid to low 30's on Nov 11. In most freeze events, usually those areas are about 10 degrees warmer than the Western FL Panhandle. In recent winters, especially the period of late 2018 to early 2022 the temps seen this morning typically were the coldest it got for the whole winter (in January usually). 

From looking at weather maps, the reason for this is that the trough was centered further east dragging the cold air behind it at more of an angle directly down into the peninsula. I believe that more than many think, the relative lack of freezing temperatures compared to history in peninsular FL in the last 15 years or so is more due to the pattern not configuring in a way to really push the cold air at the right angle in this manner.

[Jdash]

looks like Melbourne Airport recorded 37 this morning

[Eric in Orlando]

I had 37 at my house in Altamonte Springs, 38 at Leu Gardens.