florida 2025-2026 Florida Winter

[guygee]

First hard freeze tonight on the space coast barrier iskand since 1989. Hundreds of coconut and other tropical palms in the neighborhood are going to die. Need to get out this morning and wrap my 4 coconut trees in pipe-warming wire, moving blankets and tarps this before the gale-force winds start after noon, hoping the 60 inch zip ties I bought are sufficient to secure everything in the expected high winds. My mangos and pembana palm are on their own. 

Ordered a wireless temperature recording station on recommendation here to monitor temperatures tonight. 

[flplantguy]

My low dropped in the forecast, as expected, down to 27 the first night.  The wind will be bad enough my original strategy will likely fail so I'm getting tall tposts today for the north garden to block some wind.  I have no idea how the plants will tolerate 27 and windy, but that's what the Christmas 2022 freeze was like.  I seem to be in that 27 to 32 range every winter here. I would like consistency at least if not above freezing, so I can plan. I may dig some stuff up today too and try to make the windbreak somehow. Good luck everyone!

[kinzyjr]

7 hours ago, pj_orlando_z9b said:

I wrapped my coconut trunk with 5w heating cables and christmas lights. Wrapped it with burlap amd frost cloth and did end up building a frame.  I run a 30,000 BTU heat thrower into the frame with hope that the heat rises through the crown. With anticipated winds, I'm gonna need lots of blocking of the winds from neighbor's homes. Still worth a try!

Still leaning toward no protection here, but I would like to keep my two large coconuts.  Decisions...

[guygee]

"Before" pictures after heavy pruning. 

"Jamaican tall" leaned over by Irma:

 

Sprouted from a tall neighborhood tree that survived the >50% mortality of 2010:

Sprouted from a neighborhood of maypans that all survived 2010:

Sprouted from a tall nursery tree later struck by lightening , possible pacific tall:

[OutpostPalms]

I made a 13 hour drive home last night in time for the cold but besides wrapping up the bismarkias and bringing the potted bottle and foxtails inside I’m letting everything ride. 
 

Forecast for last night was 27 but only got to 31 here. Good sign perhaps. Tomorrow morning my phone and TWC agree on 21 degrees. 
 

I think I already have some mild damage to my livistona and washingtonias from last weekends 22 degrees. 
 

with this freeze I’m interested to see how my dioon edule does. It hasn’t seen these temps before. Actually looks fine for now. 
 

good luck to all tonight. 

[Matthew92]

The initial front has moved through here. It was in the high 40’s last evening, now it’s 33deg at 8am and hardly rising, showing 37 as the high. 🥶 Quite brutal. This is similar to the Christmas 2022 freeze where it basically didn’t get higher than the 30’s for about 2 days all under sunny skies.

[HudsonBill]

45 minutes ago, flplantguy said:

My low dropped in the forecast, as expected, down to 27 the first night.  The wind will be bad enough my original strategy will likely fail so I'm getting tall tposts today for the north garden to block some wind.  I have no idea how the plants will tolerate 27 and windy, but that's what the Christmas 2022 freeze was like.  I seem to be in that 27 to 32 range every winter here. I would like consistency at least if not above freezing, so I can plan. I may dig some stuff up today too and try to make the windbreak somehow. Good luck everyone!

27 to 32 seems to be my range to witch isn't horrible if we can plan for it correctly. 

[JeskiM]

For those of you cutting off palm leaves, or branches of trees/shrubs :

Don't forget that the leaves you cut off the palms can be reused to protect the plant.  You can pile the big leaves over other small plants to act as a barrier to wind. Or use them to weigh down tarps, etc.  I always try to reuse them in some way to help cover some plants. 

- Matt

[ruskinPalms]

NWS is forecasting 34F as the low for tonight for my area. Then 31F Sunday night and then 36F for Monday night.  I’m sure Sunday and Monday night will be colder than they have my forecast for as it will be more radiational by that time.  I’m not going to protect anything. Everything I have is just too big and not particularly exotic or irreplaceable anyway. I do have a C. macrocarpa that I’d hate to lose but I kinda want to test it out against the cold anyway. If stuff dies here this winter then it probably just isn’t going to work here long term anyway.  I took some pictures of the yard this morning so I can post some before and after photos. Some of my palms already have some cold damage on them from the frost earlier this week. Good luck to all!

[pj_orlando_z9b]

1 hour ago, JeskiM said:

For those of you cutting off palm leaves, or branches of trees/shrubs :

Don't forget that the leaves you cut off the palms can be reused to protect the plant.  You can pile the big leaves over other small plants to act as a barrier to wind. Or use them to weigh down tarps, etc.  I always try to reuse them in some way to help cover some plants. 

- Matt

When building my coconut frame, several old husks fell. Great insulators! I lined my young Christmas palm with them and set the C9 on them before wrapping. 

[aztropic]

C9's are the way to go. I used them with great success when I had to protect smaller palms years ago. Thankfully, we haven't had a real freeze in the Phoenix area in over 14 years.🤞🙏

 

aztropic 

Mesa, Arizona 

[RedRabbit]

Good luck everyone. We just had a similar cold event to what Orlando's about to get and it’s brutal for palms. Please protect what you can if you haven’t already.

Also, I suggest starting a new thread to document low temperatures with Wunderground screenshots. It could be a useful reference later.

[Jimbean]

44 minutes ago, RedRabbit said:

 

Also, I suggest starting a new thread to document low temperatures with Wunderground screenshots. It could be a useful reference later.

 

You read my mind.  This is going to be historic for east Florida.  If the forecast holds, it will break all time records for the coldest temperatures on the space and treasure coasts for the month of February.

 

Just wrapped up my coconut palm and my Dypsis baronii.  I'm using a heated blanket to cover the heart of my coconut palm and Christmas lights and blankets to cover the cores as much as I can. 

[JDawgs]

I live in St. Augustine. Unfortunately I have a royal palm that I think is gonna die. I protected my king palm as well as I could. Also saturated the ground. The pygmy dates are likely to take a lot of damage. Says it’s getting down to 23, but hopefully it won’t. 

[MarkC]

Why does everything east of the Rockies typically trend colder? Why do the initial extremely cold  forecasts always back down from extent of the cold only to go back down in temps forecasting as the events unfold? Don’t the forecasters build this into their forecasting? 

[kinzyjr]

This is what everyone being in the same boat looks like when the boat is called The Titanic:

[HudsonBill]

8 minutes ago, MarkC said:

Why does everything east of the Rockies typically trend colder? Why do the initial extremely cold  forecasts always back down from extent of the cold only to go back down in temps forecasting as the events unfold? Don’t the forecasters build this into their forecasting? 

No idea but my area in florida it's always the radiational freezes they are way off on. They will say 35 and it's 28. 

[MarkC]

5 minutes ago, HudsonBill said:

No idea but my area in florida it's always the radiational freezes they are way off on. They will say 35 and it's 28. 

Good luck to you, this is gonna be very painful not just by the extremes but the extended duration which looks even colder now. 

[RiverCityRichard]

Used some tarps and 8 ft stakes at an angle to create a northerly wind block. Ran C9 lights under them. Also made some visqueen greenhouses on some smaller palms in the yard, and within the tarp windbreak.

Palms that are protected:

Coccothrinax Azul

Coccothrinax Hiorami

Pinanga Adagensis

Thrinax Radiata

Chamaedorea CostaRicana, Ernesti Augustii, Microspadix and Cataractarum

Chambeyronia Macrocarpa

Howea Forsteriana

Palms that are going to die:

Chrysalidocarpus Pembana, Lanceolata

Chambeyronia Oliviformis

Archontophoenix Myolensis, Tuckeri

Sabal Mauritiformis

Palms that got the crown wrapped and C9 lights and will defoliate:

Archontophoenix Cunninghamiana x2

Beccariophoenix Alfredii.

 

Forecast for SW Volusia 24 tonight, and 27 Sunday night.

[HudsonBill]

20 minutes ago, MarkC said:

Good luck to you, this is gonna be very painful not just by the extremes but the extended duration which looks even colder now. 

When i lived in pa it didn't matter radiational adjective blah blah blah they said 20 it was 20 it usually was always warmer than forecasted. Come here and looking at the firecast in teh winter is basically useless lol. It's always colder usually the day after the first night. Thank you my yard has already been beat up this winter and my firecast isn't much worse than it's already been. The onshore winds are keeping the west coast a bit warmer tonight. 

[FlaPalmLover]

I went ahead and wrapped up my foxtail as best as I could. Surely this will be enough to protect it. I also wrapped up the fronds of my king palm that's under canopy and my cunninghamiana that's in the open air (even though cunninghamiana are supposed to be more cold hardy iirc?). The foxtail's fronds are big enough that I think the cover should be safe in the wind, or at least I sure hope so.

[PalmBossTampa]

16 minutes ago, RiverCityRichard said:

Used some tarps and 8 ft stakes at an angle to create a northerly wind block. Ran C9 lights under them. Also made some visqueen greenhouses on some smaller palms in the yard, and within the tarp windbreak.

Palms that are protected:

Coccothrinax Azul

Coccothrinax Hiorami

Pinanga Adagensis

Thrinax Radiata

Chamaedorea CostaRicana, Ernesti Augustii, Microspadix and Cataractarum

Chambeyronia Macrocarpa

Howea Forsteriana

Palms that are going to die:

Chrysalidocarpus Pembana, Lanceolata

Chambeyronia Oliviformis

Archontophoenix Myolensis, Tuckeri

Sabal Mauritiformis

Palms that got the crown wrapped and C9 lights and will defoliate:

Archontophoenix Cunninghamiana x2

Beccariophoenix Alfredii.

 

Forecast for SW Volusia 24 tonight, and 27 Sunday night.

Stay warm Richard . 

[RiverCityRichard]

2 minutes ago, PalmBossTampa said:

Stay warm Richard . 

Likewise brother!

[PalmBossTampa]

Wrapped up my Caribbean stuff yesterday. All 4 Pseudophoenix, Coccothrinax Hiorami,Camaguyena,Borhidiana,Alta,Azul, and crinata

Also my Copernicia rigida and bailyana. Fallensis and Gigas look tough after 29 degrees so i left them to rough it out. Crinata had minimal damage at 29 degrees even at 24” size.  All the other Coccothrinax sp were down to spear plus 1-2 each.

I also wrapped my favorite sabals that i dont wish to push past 29 yet. They were unaffected by 29 degrees. Antillesis and Loughidiana

Got an Acrocomia acuelata that’s burned down to the spear but I didn’t give it any extra help for tonight. I rooted really deeply as a 1gal before i got any new fronds so it should bounce back.

I choose this portion of property to plant the natives as it maximizes daylight hours year-round…especially important in the winter though. The berms are sugar sand with soil amended in planting pits only. 

 

[JeskiM]

20 minutes ago, PalmBossTampa said:

Wrapped up my Caribbean stuff yesterday. All 4 Pseudophoenix, Coccothrinax Hiorami,Camaguyena,Borhidiana,Alta,Azul, and crinata

Also my Copernicia rigida and bailyana. Fallensis and Gigas look tough after 29 degrees so i left them to rough it out. Crinata had minimal damage at 29 degrees even at 24” size.  All the other Coccothrinax sp were down to spear plus 1-2 each.

I also wrapped my favorite sabals that i dont wish to push past 29 yet. They were unaffected by 29 degrees. Antillesis and Loughidiana

Got an Acrocomia acuelata that’s burned down to the spear but I didn’t give it any extra help for tonight. I rooted really deeply as a 1gal before i got any new fronds so it should bounce back.

I choose this portion of property to plant the natives as it maximizes daylight hours year-round…especially important in the winter though. The berms are sugar sand with soil amended in planting pits only. 

 

Some of the stuff I didn't cover last weekend  (Austin TX area) looks just like that. P. Sylvestris, Washie Robusta, and a few others. I had upper teens two nights in a row and was sub-freezing for ~ 60 hours, with piles of sleet that took 6 days to melt (in the shade).

Last year in a similar cold snap they froze, pulled the spears, etc, but they came back fine.

This year I protected more stuff and better. I used reflective bubble sheet insulation, pots, and mulch.  Here's what it looked like this morning (2nd cold snap in a week).

The one pic is a small P. sylvestris, the same one that spear pulled last year with barely any protection.  This time I cut off a few older leaves, mulched up to the spear. The leaves are already beyond crispy from last week, but the meristem will be fine, and that's really all that matters. I know it will be fine because I pulled the mulch back for a 48 hour period where we finally stayed above freezing and it was a very deep green vs the brown/grau crispy color the exposed leaves show.

Good luck to all down there the next few nights !!!

- Matt

[Palmarum]

8 hours ago, guygee said:

... Ordered a wireless temperature recording station on recommendation here to monitor temperatures tonight. 

I had a couple wireless thermometers but they stopped working. I placed large print ones outside of windows to be read with a flashlight. They are about 5 feet from the glass.

 

7 hours ago, guygee said:

"Before" pictures after heavy pruning. ...

I was going to tell people last night to take before pictures if they had time. The last thing I did for today after wrapping. While doing so, I had a rather plump mockingbird follow me around, as if to ask what she should do.

 

6 hours ago, JeskiM said:

... Don't forget that the leaves you cut off the palms can be reused to protect the plant.  You can pile the big leaves over other small plants to act as a barrier to wind. Or use them to weigh down tarps, etc.  I always try to reuse them in some way to help cover some plants.  - Matt

Good point, I had to trim everything before either moving plants to the garage or laying them down. I used the trimmings to pile onto smaller landscape material or just tossed it onto stuff. Cleaning can come later.

Ryan

[sonoranfans]

On 1/30/2026 at 7:43 AM, SubTropicRay said:

Palmetto?   Tom, if you drop below 35-37F there, I'll be shocked.  Along with Anna Maria, that area is one of thee warmest areas north of Ft. Myers.  You should do fine.  The heat is coming I promise 😄.  

weird disctrict, closer to ellenton(2 miles due north just east of us75 wherre it meets 275).  Im OK a bit numb to it all.  in 2010 it was 28F anna maria was 38F

[flplantguy]

We have had enough nasty gusts here it's tearing through the yard pretty bad. The windbreak has not grown in at all yet and my attempts at creating a windbreak are not going well with these gusts. Covers won't do much but it's what I have, I don't plug in anything electric to protect them.  It sounds like a tropical storm outside as I take a break from my attempts to save damage.  Next is cover what left and hope it does ok. Nothing is getting replanted until the windbreak grows in if it's not capable of handling 40mph gusts and freezes in the open yard now.

[CodyORB]

Snow flurries coming down in Tallahassee, I’m told. On my way back from Orlando, which has been giving much grayer, duller vibes than I’m used to. Hang in there, everyone!

The wind is gonna do a number.

[JLM]

Had a high of 35F today, wind chills remained in the low to mid 20s all day as winds have been gusting in the 35-45 mph range. As of 4:45 PM CST, the temperature is already just barely below freezing at 31.5F. Hoping for a very very gradual drop through the night. Current forecast is 20F. Hopefully the cold air advection isnt as strong as anticipated.

Stay warm out there tonight, and hopefully everyone's palms will make it out alive.

[Matthew92]

32 deg at 4:45pm here 🥶 winds still HOWLING. I used a small hunting tent to put over my Philodendron selloum so I don’t lose the stem. It’s blown off more than once during the day- finally rigged up something that is holding. How windy is it in central FL at this time for you all?

I have to tell myself that things will survive since my yard already endured this in the Christmas 2022 freeze (that one maybe being a little worse). That one had the terrible winds along with hard freezing temps like this one. Somehow most of my Chamaeodorea microspadix didn’t lose their stems in that one but they did lose most of their fronds. I protected the base of them since I don’t have time/resources to cover each clump which are 4+ feet tall. So in the worst case it can resprout from the offshoots.

[Sabal_Louisiana]

3 hours ago, MarkC said:

Why does everything east of the Rockies typically trend colder? Why do the initial extremely cold  forecasts always back down from extent of the cold only to go back down in temps forecasting as the events unfold? Don’t the forecasters build this into their forecasting? 

why does it gets much colder east of the Rockies during the Winter?
The Rockies are the problem. The act as a high and effective barrier that prevents milder Pacific air from spreading east. Their presence helps to amplify the troughs associated with Canadian cold air masses, which can spread south like water on a flat table, all the way down to the Gulf. Ever notice how they always pour down from the same area into the US? Florida, at least, is surrounded by warm water, which usually acts as a modifier to continental air masses.

I suspect that the models that forecasters use tend to underplay the efficiency of dense, shallow cold air movement at the surface. These same models also sometimes underestimate radiational cooling that occurs when the cold settles in before modifying and moving out.

NWS forecasters sometimes, I think, seem to go with a more conservative approach in forecasting. They might forecast temperatures that are a bit colder than what materialIzes, as a precaution.

 

[JLM]

Heres the NWS forecast for the state of FL by region:

Northwestern Florida:



Central & Eastern Panhandle:



Northeastern Florida:



East Central Florida:



West Central Florida:



Southern Florida:

[Matthew92]

Chamaedorea microspadix with bases protected. I know it looks kind of thrown together but I put pinestraw thickly at the base and then towels and blankets on top. Seems to have worked the last couple years we had teens. The plants under the buckets are Cordyline australis ‘red star.’
 
 

Hunting tent over my Philodendron selloum. I wrapped the bud/base with a heavy moving blanket underneath that. By some miracle the trunk survived 15deg and almost 6inches of snow last January with just two heavy moving blankets wrapped tightly around the bud/trunk. 

[JJPalmer]

HRRR (18z) seems to show a ‘worst case’ scenario with model runs materially cooler than the NWS prediction for both tomorrow and Monday AM. As always, go with the professionals, but will be interesting to see how certain models perform. Good luck, everyone. 

[Aceraceae]

Port St. Lucie is odd for the east coast of Florida because it's an inland suburban city, and not on the coast. 

And the nearest airport weather station at Treasure Coast airport is also inland, north of Fort Pierce. 
Coastal St. Lucie County Jensen Beach area won't be mid 20s. 
 

[Merlyn]

4 hours ago, JDawgs said:

I live in St. Augustine. Unfortunately I have a royal palm that I think is gonna die. I protected my king palm as well as I could. Also saturated the ground. The pygmy dates are likely to take a lot of damage. Says it’s getting down to 23, but hopefully it won’t. 

Unless the Royal is really small, they seem to be pretty tough.  There are a bunch around the Sanford area that survived many years of frosts in the upper 20s and at least one ~25F and all survived.  The only thing that finally killed a big batch of them was a chainsaw during construction of a new business complex...  I've seen some completely defoliated and grow right back literally a couple of weeks later.

It is already sub-40 here with not too high winds but occasional huge gusts.  I went around today and took about 210 photos of the yard and all the plants.  Most things I did not attempt to cover, being either too big to try, or already known to be really tough, or already burnt to a crisp from previous 27-30F frosts this winter.  I did put boxes over 2 small Coryphas, my grown-from-seed Arenga Westerhoutii, a couple of small Arenga Hookeriana, and a couple of Philodendron "Evansii".  I moved my small nursery area into the garage on top of a single folding table.  I just remembered that I was going to cover a small Attalea Butyracea and Phalerata though...time to get out there before having dinner!

Darwin's gonna sort it all out, right @kinzyjr?

[kinzyjr]

19 minutes ago, Merlyn said:

Darwin's gonna sort it all out, right @kinzyjr?

Unfortunately, that sums it up.  Everyone has a thread they hope they never have to update again.  For me, it's this one.

I think @SubTropicRay is sticking with the drought thread, though.  😊

[FlaPalmLover]

Drove by today and it looked like the coconut 2-3 miles from me was already pretty burnt. It may be lucky to make it through the next couple of nights. Didn't look like the owners were planning to do anything to try to protect it from even further damage, either. But who knows... maybe it will bounce back by summertime. 

[Matthew92]

Looks like the freezing line is just north of Ocala at this point.