florida 2025-2026 Florida Winter

[JeskiM]

I see a few questions about how is it getting so cold in FL right now considering that areas much farther north of here have snow on the ground and are warmer ?

There's a few things that must be considered to answer that question :

1:  Strong cold air advection.  That cyclone that just slammed the coast from DC to Boston advected a lot of cold air from the north straight south. The cold air advection wasn't as intense as what you got a couple weeks ago, but it was still strong.

2:  Extremely Dry Air.   The air at the surface and at every level above the surface over areas of Florida are extremely dry right now. This allows the air to cool down significantly.  It also allows the daytime high to be warm.

3:  The air is also very stable and stratified (thermally in the vertical) over Florida right now. This prevents any mixing at night. The coldest air will sink down to the surface.

4:  The vertical column of air from the surface all the way to the boundary with space (say 10mb) is exhibiting an extremely Radiationally "Clear Window".  Radiational cooling all through the atmosphere is maximized right now helping to further cool the air column.

This Radiationally clear window is there because the air is extremely dry at all levels, no clouds, calm winds, no mixing.  

That Dry air above got pulled in from the west / central portion of the interior continent, particularly at the low levels. The deeper moisture got dragged up from the south (well east of Florida) on the eastern side of the storm in a warm / moist conveyor belt and dumped it's precip. along the coast in the form of snow and rain.

So why was it warmer in areas that just got snow ?   Those areas are all the complete opposite of what Florida got.  They have a high level of moisture in the lowest levels of the atmosphere. Still some clouds. The air is mixing well at the low levels.  Those areas are actually seeing more warm air advection compared to Florida.  That snow was extremely moist an quite warm. They will cool down more as the low moves further away.

Under a "Radiatively Clear", barotropic atmosphere (post cold advection) .... the 2nd morning after, the lowest temperature of the day will always occur right at sunrise and last up to an hour afterwards until that incoming shortwave radiation from the sun can warm the surface and mixing occurs via shallow convection.

This is all just physics. Physics and weather have no regards to the calendar, ever.

-Matt

 

[Hombre de Palmas]

3 hours ago, JeskiM said:

I see a few questions about how is it getting so cold in FL right now considering that areas much farther north of here have snow on the ground and are warmer ?

There's a few things that must be considered to answer that question :

1:  Strong cold air advection.  That cyclone that just slammed the coast from DC to Boston advected a lot of cold air from the north straight south. The cold air advection wasn't as intense as what you got a couple weeks ago, but it was still strong.

2:  Extremely Dry Air.   The air at the surface and at every level above the surface over areas of Florida are extremely dry right now. This allows the air to cool down significantly.  It also allows the daytime high to be warm.

3:  The air is also very stable and stratified (thermally in the vertical) over Florida right now. This prevents any mixing at night. The coldest air will sink down to the surface.

4:  The vertical column of air from the surface all the way to the boundary with space (say 10mb) is exhibiting an extremely Radiationally "Clear Window".  Radiational cooling all through the atmosphere is maximized right now helping to further cool the air column.

This Radiationally clear window is there because the air is extremely dry at all levels, no clouds, calm winds, no mixing.  

That Dry air above got pulled in from the west / central portion of the interior continent, particularly at the low levels. The deeper moisture got dragged up from the south (well east of Florida) on the eastern side of the storm in a warm / moist conveyor belt and dumped it's precip. along the coast in the form of snow and rain.

So why was it warmer in areas that just got snow ?   Those areas are all the complete opposite of what Florida got.  They have a high level of moisture in the lowest levels of the atmosphere. Still some clouds. The air is mixing well at the low levels.  Those areas are actually seeing more warm air advection compared to Florida.  That snow was extremely moist an quite warm. They will cool down more as the low moves further away.

Under a "Radiatively Clear", barotropic atmosphere (post cold advection) .... the 2nd morning after, the lowest temperature of the day will always occur right at sunrise and last up to an hour afterwards until that incoming shortwave radiation from the sun can warm the surface and mixing occurs via shallow convection.

This is all just physics. Physics and weather have no regards to the calendar, ever.

-Matt

 

Thank you for taking the time to "explain the pain"!

Very concise and understandable.

[kinzyjr]

The typical map - red for freeze warning, gold for frost warning, blue for rip current warning.  Let us hope that, mercifully, this is the last one.  Old man winter got to thin the herd a little, now it's time to let us get to work restructuring our gardens.  Should be good weather for Plantae-palooza, minus the afternoon showers.

[HudsonBill]

39 at 8pm lmfao this will be the worst night yet. Makes 0 gucking sense. I officially actialy quit. 

 

[flplantguy]

42 here with mid 30s inland, but the forecast shows that wind shift from the south, and I'm seeing it on my station with the little movement of air that would be a gust of it was faster. I may recover stuff tonight but idk yet.

[MarkC]

I can only laugh…

 

[HudsonBill]

36

[Merlyn]

It was 29.3 at my place last night, with light frost around 8AM.  It was just barely visible on the rooftops, probably because it was so dry.  The airport hit 34F for 2 hours, with no significant wind.  The UHI effect helps them again!  

I took a look through the yard over the past couple of days...much death and destruction.  You know it was cold when the Allagoptera Arenaria have at least 25% burnt fronds.  The damage is definitely a LOT worse than 24.4F a couple of years ago.  But it's hard to judge whether it was:

• The extra 2 degrees (22.5F vs 24.4F)
• The high wind this year vs frost 3 years ago
• Duration of cold (30 to 50% more hours under freezing this year)
• Repeated sub-zero cold fronts 
• Very low daytime highs after cold fronts
• Late timeframe with 6 or 7 freeze nights in February

I can't even make a guess as to what part of the above items made the biggest difference, and there's probably more bullet points I haven't thought of.

[kinzyjr]

@HudsonBill What was the absolute minimum up there this winter?

[flplantguy]

36.5 and slowly dropping with calm winds.  Not sure if the drop will stop or not, but if it does frost is certain yet again.  If it lives it's getting dug up if it's a palm and damaged.  I would rather have them in the greenhouse until they are too big than keep up with them outdoors just to have the aesthetic value be minimal between freezes. Not really worth it. Oh and the Japanese maples that like the chill tried to leaf out already and may have died back due to the early heat. Lol. The damage is noticeable on everything now after that warm week, so it's clear that this year outmatches the others that have street views back to 2008. The damage from 2010 was similar but from frost, and I have seen wind burn on tolerant natives this time that I never have (like some cedars/junipers of some kind that were just planted had some minor tip burn😳). If climate change includes freezes two days after 90 degree weather each year then the consequences are more than just our gardens (like my cool season veggies that bolted), so hopefully this is a one off rarity that's another 50 years before it happens again.  In any case, I have seen what it's like in my yard here in a bad winter and it's not fun gardening. Almost everything has failed or taken damage, including some natives that I hope come back, even the smilax vines were fried in spots.  What a winter.

[HudsonBill]

1 hour ago, kinzyjr said:

@HudsonBill What was the absolute minimum up there this winter?

Worst was 24 in my backyard.  19 2 miles away. 

[kinzyjr]

10 minutes ago, HudsonBill said:

Worst was 24 in my backyard.  19 2 miles away. 

Same minimum as here.  Now that all of the damage is done, there will be some room to do some rework this summer. 

I'm moving to anything that can handle my record low, minus the stuff that is able to sneak through this event.  That may be a few coconuts and a spindle palm, maybe a few others like a Carpoxylon that seems like it is still growing.  There were a lot of spear-pulls down here.  Even if something survives, if it is on the edge, it may get removed. 

If it doesn't have to be a coconut or a crownshaft palm, your location does give you some decent options as far as palms, cycads, and accent plants that will stay green during a record event. 

Hope tonight is the last of these events.

[Hombre de Palmas]

Well, a disappointing end to a long nightmare.

After a forecast of 39°F I woke up to 34° at 5AM and it has remained stuck there for a couple hours. Frost pretty widespread. Ice on the car that is parked out because the garage is filled with potted plants. At least I did that right.

Today, I start picking up the pieces but what is left might not be worth saving in the long run. 

I would prefer to remove the tropicals to just have it done and move on with a bulletproof landscape, but so much work...

Maybe I just need to wait for hurricane season.

...which will also be the next time we see measurable precipitation.

 

[kinzyjr]

34F-35F in various spots in the yard with frost on cars, roof tops, and in the yards with no canopy.  The airport appears to have come pretty close to freezing, with a lowest hourly of 32.4F on several of the readings.

[HudsonBill]

33 around 2 am was my coldest then slowly came up to 35. 

 

[flplantguy]

24 minutes ago, HudsonBill said:

33 around 2 am was my coldest then slowly came up to 35. 

 

Just like my place, I'm sure the frost was also very apparent.  So done with winter, but the damage is done for us all and the lingering impacts remain.  Hopefully businesses are ok and our plants do better than expected.  So over it and ready to buy spring goodies!(Small ones that live in a greenhouse)

[HudsonBill]

17 minutes ago, flplantguy said:

Just like my place, I'm sure the frost was also very apparent.  So done with winter, but the damage is done for us all and the lingering impacts remain.  Hopefully businesses are ok and our plants do better than expected.  So over it and ready to buy spring goodies!(Small ones that live in a greenhouse)

The frost wasn't that bad at all. Just on cars roofs and spoty on grass.  Things have done surprisingly better than I thought they would in my yard. I still have mango seedlings in the yard taht are untouched under thick canopy. 

[pj_orlando_z9b]

Orlando International: 36F

Orlando Executive: 38F

My backyard: 39F

Hopefully this is our last worry of this winter. Bring on Spring.

[JeskiM]

I just want to show how dry the air was over north Florida on the morning of Feb 24th.

Here is a computed sounding profile from the GFS model run initialized at 6Z.   

The bright green squiggly vertical line on the left is the dewpoint temp.  The red line paralleling it to the right is the temperature. At the surface the dewpoint was 20F and the temperature was 35F.  The dewpoint spread (the distance between the dewpoint and the temperature line) is very big at all levels of the atmosphere above the surface.  In fact if you go up to around 2.75 km above the ground (near the 750 mb level)  the air is bone dry as that dewpoint spread hits is maximum value.  Only at the surface was the Relative Humidity (RH) at it's highest point (48%).  At every point above the RH was much lower. In this sounding, for the entire depth of the atmosphere there is only 0.16 inches of Precipitable Water (PW = 0.16in). This also proves that the atmosphere is very dry .... I will come back to this point below.

On the far right hand axis labelled at the top "Inf. Temp."  The "Inf. Temp." is the Inferred Temperature Advection (degrees C / hour). At every level of the atmosphere, except around the 750 mb layer you see cold air advection taking place (the blue vertical rectangles on that axis). 

Now, coming back to the Precipitable water available within the entire depth (column) of the atmosphere (PW = 0.16 inches). Let's look at the Sounding Climatology from the nearest location, Jacksonville FL :

Here you can see that for February 24th the 10th Percentile value for PW is 0.32 inches. That morning north FL was seeing values only half of that. In fact the values being seen were very near the all-time lowest values seen via real soundings.

The air was extremely dry above north Florida that day.  It was very clear to both incoming Shortwave and outgoing Longwave radiation. The lack of water vapor and no mixing allowed for very strong cooling of the air.     

-Matt

[flplantguy]

You could see and feel it too, I have experienced it as a kid in the west, and the sun brightness and the brilliant blue sky was obvious. Record setting once again apparently too, I wonder how many records were broken this winter in Florida. Impressive what that nor'easter blizzard did. A bunch of "impressive" storms this year and that's not a compliment to them lol 

[Hombre de Palmas]

Today is lawn waste pickup so I was out early this morning cleaning up the flotsam and jetsam of the past 6 weeks.

The Lantanas got snapped again (3rd time) as well as my Sky Vine and Brazilian red cloaks (what few leaves they maintained). I saw a lot of frost on my bromeliads in open areas that escaped the first onslaught, so they will look like garbage for a couple months... at least.  

Don't know what the frost will do to the new fronds pushing out from the Christmas Palms. The ends were already fried but I'm 50/50 if I even want to look at them for the next year, not knowing if they will expire or not. The Foxtail spears are still pretty tight, so this should have a marginal effect. Many Royals and a few Foxtails around town were just deploying new fronds. God knows how they will take this.

I will put the potted stuff I stowed in the garage out later today. They will not be going back in again! 

The Chenille and Super King Ixoras may be toast, but as my wife says you're not dead 'til your warm and dead. Arbicolas are still trending downward so I'm not sure they even noticed this last outrage. My crotons are beginning to bud but they are so tight, so this shouldn't cause too much damage. All of the Draceanas have yet to bud so they should be OK.  Hibiscus still hanging on to their dead leaves but I am optimistic they will eventually flush. Bougainvillea are still mostly bare but some vegetation and flowers remain on the underside.

The heat over the past three weeks was very unwelcome. This cycle is about the worst thing that could have happened.

Whaddya gonna do?

[Merlyn]

Tonight's low was 33.4F at around 7AM, but with a long 5 or 6 hours in the 30s.  The 10 day forecast finally calls for "normal" weather, with lows around 60 and highs in the 70s and lower 80s.  I was waiting for the last frost before I started cutting off fronds, because if you take the dead canopy off...the protected stuff underneath just gets torched.  I'll probably have to leave a few dead fronds on the Alfredii just for shade protection on the understory palms and cycads.

@kinzyjr I'm going to go through the whole yard again and log all the death and destruction...

[HudsonBill]

11 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

Same minimum as here.  Now that all of the damage is done, there will be some room to do some rework this summer. 

I'm moving to anything that can handle my record low, minus the stuff that is able to sneak through this event.  That may be a few coconuts and a spindle palm, maybe a few others like a Carpoxylon that seems like it is still growing.  There were a lot of spear-pulls down here.  Even if something survives, if it is on the edge, it may get removed. 

If it doesn't have to be a coconut or a crownshaft palm, your location does give you some decent options as far as palms, cycads, and accent plants that will stay green during a record event. 

Hope tonight is the last of these events.

After this year how my yard looks and how others look I have realized how important canopy is.  A night in the upper 20s 27 to 30 5 hours or less has 0 effect on anything under canopy. The realy bad nights with wind and the night at 24 with no wind the stuff under canopy still out performed stuff in the open. Areca palms under canopy small ones are still alive as coukd be just a little burn. Arecas in the open torched tonthw ground. Mangos in the open torched mangos under canopy still have some green leaves or no damage at all if they are protected enough. I've learned the warm and cold spots of my yard.  A thermometer didnt show much difference in these areas but the plants did. I have an 8ft tall mango in the open on the back side of my yard. I only protected it the night at 26 and 24. It went through all the nights with heavy frost and 4 or 5 nights between 27 and 29 not protected with 0 damage. Bananas under canopy on part of my yard no damage intill thw 2 bad nights etc. I now know I have no problem growing sensitive fruit trees and ficus etc under canopy.  Some defolitated or burn back tiny branches but survived perfectly ok and are pushing new growth already. 

I am focusing on canopy. I have planted almost 15 queen palms to help with canopy. They are super invasive around me I dig most of them out of the woods behind me before they cleared it for houses.  

 

Pic of mango for reference. Its had a rough past over the last 3 years. Flooding has almost killed it twice. That problem has been mostly resolved. 

[pj_orlando_z9b]

37 minutes ago, HudsonBill said:

After this year how my yard looks and how others look I have realized how important canopy is.  A night in the upper 20s 27 to 30 5 hours or less has 0 effect on anything under canopy. The realy bad nights with wind and the night at 24 with no wind the stuff under canopy still out performed stuff in the open. Areca palms under canopy small ones are still alive as coukd be just a little burn. Arecas in the open torched tonthw ground. Mangos in the open torched mangos under canopy still have some green leaves or no damage at all if they are protected enough. I've learned the warm and cold spots of my yard.  A thermometer didnt show much difference in these areas but the plants did. I have an 8ft tall mango in the open on the back side of my yard. I only protected it the night at 26 and 24. It went through all the nights with heavy frost and 4 or 5 nights between 27 and 29 not protected with 0 damage. Bananas under canopy on part of my yard no damage intill thw 2 bad nights etc. I now know I have no problem growing sensitive fruit trees and ficus etc under canopy.  Some defolitated or burn back tiny branches but survived perfectly ok and are pushing new growth already. 

I am focusing on canopy. I have planted almost 15 queen palms to help with canopy. They are super invasive around me I dig most of them out of the woods behind me before they cleared it for houses.  

 

Pic of mango for reference. Its had a rough past over the last 3 years. Flooding has almost killed it twice. That problem has been mostly resolved. 

I was amazed what canopy did in the big freeze. I have z10 plants looking almost untouched at 25F, both palms and plants. They say wind chill is not felt by plants but it sure dehydrated them apparently. 

[Jimbean]

38.3F this morning here in south Brevard.  I think that's the end of it.  

Worst winter here in 35 years. Now let's see what survived. 

[Hombre de Palmas]

1 hour ago, Jimbean said:

38.3F this morning here in south Brevard.  I think that's the end of it.  

Worst winter here in 35 years. Now let's see what survived. 

Our low here a few weeks ago was close to the all-time low of 1985 for two nights + 50MPH winds.  Last night it was ONLY 34°.

I'm a relative newcomer here, but I thought I did my homework before I put the garden in 10 years ago. 

I chose poorly.

[ruskinPalms]

Looks like around 35 with frost here this morning. My already damaged coconut got frost on it again. Interesting how I thought I had planted it in a charmed location near the southeast corner of my house and it has managed to get more frost on it there than anything else in my yard. I guess you just never know until the real test. 

[flplantguy]

If we get 35 or more years I'll be a very old man by then and it probably won't matter lol. Too bad this spot gets hit much much easier than others.  I counted 40 nights below 45 on my station this winter (so far, there could be another) but it's a solid zone 9b here each year but the warmest and not suitable for most exotic Florida stuff. Glad I have good canopy in the back to plant in now that I have seen how it plays out here, it has to be pretty dense to help after 12 freezes lol (but only one below 28.9, at 24.6 the second night of the big one). Oh and windbreaks need to be very dense and hurricane proof strength to be effective, like a wall of sabals and stopper, sand live oak and live oak, etc. NOT strelitzia Nicolai 🤣😐🤬

[Jimbean]

1 hour ago, Hombre de Palmas said:

Our low here a few weeks ago was close to the all-time low of 1985 for two nights + 50MPH winds.  Last night it was ONLY 34°.

I'm a relative newcomer here, but I thought I did my homework before I put the garden in 10 years ago. 

I chose poorly.

It depends on how far inland you are in St. Lucie county.  If you're generally east of the turnpike, then normally you'd be good.  The setup we had on 02/01 was unusually bad, similar to 12/25/1989.  If I remember correctly, the all time record lows on the east coast are as follows:

Merritt Island 21F

Patrick Space Force Base 24F

Melbourne 17/19F

Vero Beach 21F

Fort Peirce 19F

Port St. Lucie 22F

West Palm Beach 24F

We were not too far off from our all time record lows, about 2F to 6F in fact.  What we just saw historically is almost as bad as it gets.  The rest of the state was give or take was a repeat of 2010.  North Florida and within about ten miles from the gulf coast fared comparatively well on this one. 

[Hombre de Palmas]

38 minutes ago, Jimbean said:

It depends on how far inland you are in St. Lucie county.  If you're generally east of the turnpike, then normally you'd be good.  The setup we had on 02/01 was unusually bad, similar to 12/25/1989.  If I remember correctly, the all time record lows on the east coast are as follows:

Merritt Island 21F

Patrick Space Force Base 24F

Melbourne 17/19F

Vero Beach 21F

Fort Peirce 19F

Port St. Lucie 22F

West Palm Beach 24F

We were not too far off from our all time record lows, about 2F to 6F in fact.  What we just saw historically is almost as bad as it gets.  The rest of the state was give or take was a repeat of 2010.  North Florida and within about ten miles from the gulf coast fared comparatively well on this one. 

 

 

We are between the turnpike and U.S. 1.

[Jimbean]

Just now, Hombre de Palmas said:

We are between the turnpike and U.S. 1.

Historically royal palms have always survived in that area, even from the 1989 freeze.  Coconuts on the other hand perished from that freeze, in that area. Everything labeled 10A should rebound, it will take all year, but they will recover and hopefully we get a few winters that are at least not too far below average and they will all be fine.  I wouldn't guarantee anything labeled zone 10B though, like coconuts. In fact I think the coconuts and Adonidia merrillii are cooked west of US1 from about PSL northward. 

[Hombre de Palmas]

13 minutes ago, Jimbean said:

Historically royal palms have always survived in that area, even from the 1989 freeze.  Coconuts on the other hand perished from that freeze, in that area. Everything labeled 10A should rebound, it will take all year, but they will recover and hopefully we get a few winters that are at least not too far below average and they will all be fine.  I wouldn't guarantee anything labeled zone 10B though, like coconuts. In fact I think the coconuts and Adonidia merrillii are cooked west of US1 from about PSL northward. 

Thank you for your input.

I think my Foxtails will make it, but the Adonidias, while pushing new spears in 6/8 cases and flushing seed pods look to be hanging by a thread. Could be their last gasp. I'm resigned.

I have a friend with a bunch of coconuts and they are also pushing spears and flushing (not sure what the correct term is) seed pods. But they too are really burned. Badly.

[JLM]

Hit 45F for a low this morning. Temp went up to near 50F for a few hours lastnight before we managed to sneak in some radiational cooling before sunrise. For the next 7 days, not looking at anything below 50F. For the next 10-15 days, very low chances of dropping into the 40s. Spring is on, but do we get another frost? My guess is probably, or at least close to it, but i think we might just be done with freezes here.

Side note, the warmth from the past few weeks (minus the cold snap we just had) has pushed everything to flower and start leafing out here. Everything is doing something at this point, maples are getting leaves now and the birches are starting as well. Oaks will follow sooner than later.

[HudsonBill]

I think spring is finaly here. The last freeze and frost didn't hurt anything but 1 new banana leaf and 1 new elephant ear leaf. All new growth on everything else was untouched and still growing. 

[FlaPalmLover]

I guess I will probably be tossing my foxtail, because they're putting a new sidewalk in in the right-of-way here and I found out that mine is in the way of where it's going. I don't see it being worth trying to transplant it most likely, given the cold damage it sustained. It may have had some hope of surviving otherwise, but I don't imagine it would be able to handle being transplanted. 

[pj_orlando_z9b]

6 hours ago, HudsonBill said:

I think spring is finaly here. The last freeze and frost didn't hurt anything but 1 new banana leaf and 1 new elephant ear leaf. All new growth on everything else was untouched and still growing. 

Models are already picking up on one more break of the polar vortex mid March and driving into the SE US. Some on social media are saying there could be one more threat. Climo says a freeze though by that time would be near 0 for central Florida. Maybe 40s. I guess polar vortices only like the Eastern US? Getting old. 

[Hombre de Palmas]

8 hours ago, pj_orlando_z9b said:

Models are already picking up on one more break of the polar vortex mid March and driving into the SE US. Some on social media are saying there could be one more threat. Climo says a freeze though by that time would be near 0 for central Florida. Maybe 40s. I guess polar vortices only like the Eastern US? Getting old. 

I'm not seeing much of a threat on the latest model runs but to your point in mid-March upper 30s or low 40s is PROBABLY the worst but might be a light frost, however...

To quote Bob Dylan

When you ain't got nothin' you got nothin' to lose.

Liberating in a very sad sense.

15 hours ago, HudsonBill said:

I think spring is finaly here. The last freeze and frost didn't hurt anything but 1 new banana leaf and 1 new elephant ear leaf. All new growth on everything else was untouched and still growing. 

[JeskiM]

16 hours ago, pj_orlando_z9b said:

Models are already picking up on one more break of the polar vortex mid March and driving into the SE US. Some on social media are saying there could be one more threat. Climo says a freeze though by that time would be near 0 for central Florida. Maybe 40s. I guess polar vortices only like the Eastern US? Getting old. 

Yes, there is a distinct possibility of maybe one more frost event down to the gulf states in mid-March.  I've seen individual model members / runs have it going anywhere from west Texas to Georgia.

At this time I'd say freeze potential at our latitudes will be 5-10%.  

At ~ 16 days out it's far too early to call any shots / odds.  I'd wait another week before being comfortable with that forecast !

-Matt

[JLM]

Current model guidance suggest a cold front sweeping thru the south in the March 12th to 14th time frame. How cold it gets is yet to be determined, but it looks like a low probability at least at this time of dropping below 40F in the Panhandle. This can certainly change though, so I'll continue to monitor. As of right now though, I'm not gonna waste any bit of the growing season if this truly is the beginning of it. Starting to focus more attention on any severe weather threats that may try to manifest over the next couple of weeks.

[kinzyjr]

Didn't get a chance to post this earlier with all of the work to get ready for Plantae-palooza, but the NWS hourly airport records for the last cold front are attached in ZIP format.

 

20260224_obhistory.zip