Historic East Florida Freeze, Feb 2026 Screen Shots

[Jimbean]

5AM

[Jimbean]

At 6AM.  Notice that it is colder in Brevard than Volusia

[Matthew92]

About 7:00am EST

[Matthew92]

[Matthew92]

[Jimbean]

[RedRabbit]

Amazing job @Jimbean and @Matthew92!

A few observations from this freeze:

1.) The entire East coast froze until Delray Beach.

2.) Captiva Island appeared to be the warmest location on the peninsula, just above 40f. Marco Island may have had some low 40s too.

3.) Downtown Orlando hit 24f.

4.) The western side of Tampa Bay was spared, but east of Downtown Tampa had a hard freeze.

5.) In Pinellas County, the beachside outperformed the bay side. GSK appeared to stay just above freezing. 

6.) Pahokee and other areas by Lake O came very close to freezing, which I never thought I’d see. The lake’s thermal shadow likely helped coastal South Florida with areas like SE Broward, which were downwind of the lake, were notably warmer than areas like Palm Beach that were not downwind.

7.) I was somewhat surprised to see Miami Beach made it into the upper 30s.

[JJPalmer]

Looks like you guys have it pretty well covered, but I’ll add mine from the sites reporting to the NWS. Apologies in advance for the compression.

[CodyORB]

4 hours ago, RedRabbit said:

Amazing job @Jimbean and @Matthew92!

A few observations from this freeze:

1.) The entire East coast froze until Delray Beach.

2.) Captiva Island appeared to be the warmest location on the peninsula, just above 40f. Marco Island may have had some low 40s too.

3.) Downtown Orlando hit 24f.

4.) The western side of Tampa Bay was spared, but east of Downtown Tampa had a hard freeze.

5.) In Pinellas County, the beachside outperformed the bay side. GSK appeared to stay just above freezing. 

6.) Pahokee and other areas by Lake O came very close to freezing, which I never thought I’d see. The lake’s thermal shadow likely helped coastal South Florida with areas like SE Broward, which were downwind of the lake, were notably warmer than areas like Palm Beach that were not downwind.

7.) I was somewhat surprised to see Miami Beach made it into the upper 30s.

Tallahassee International Airport bottomed out at 22F this morning, per Weather Underground.
 

I am surprised at how far south sub-25F temperatures reached on the peninsula, even in the Orlando heat island and the Cape Canaveral area, as generally our temps fall into the teens in those cases. It will test a lot of the coconuts and other marginal species that survived 2010. It must have been the nature of the advective freeze. 
 

At this point, there’s not much of a difference in growing opportunities between the Panhandle and Central FL. The landscape and foliage does not change significantly (abundant crownshaft palms, coconuts, tropical broadleafs) until you reach coastal SE or SW Florida, or some protected areas around the Tampa Bay. I admire the efforts of folks in Central Florida trying to bring those further north and inland, though!

[UK_Palms]

I checked in earlier at about 1pm my time to see how things had faired in Florida overnight.

Temperatures in Celsius for European and Canadian members…

 

[ruskinPalms]

Thanks for all these screenshots to document this freeze 😀👍

[Jimbean]

7:30PM 02/01/2026

 

[SeanK]

10 hours ago, JJPalmer said:

Looks like you guys have it pretty well covered, but I’ll add mine from the sites reporting to the NWS. Apologies in advance for the compression.

Was that 16° in Manatee for real?

[Jimbean]

7 hours ago, SeanK said:

Was that 16° in Manatee for real?

of course not

3AM

 

[JJPalmer]

Strange night. Outside of the immediate bay, very cold in S Tampa. Seems to be warming slightly now. Also impressively cold just E of Homosassa Springs. 

[HudsonBill]

[HudsonBill]

9 in citrus county oooooof

[flplantguy]

24.8 here. Even covered I expect losses after this. I figured my bottom floor for a big freeze was 24 and based on other numbers I think this is it.  Parts of Pasco in the mid teens will need confirmed but it's believable based on the look of the area. My greenhouse is large once complete and it looks like all my growing will be in there unless it's some magic plant. Coldest winter in a while yet my winter veggies bolted. WTF lol

[Jimbean]

[Jimbean]

I have things to take care of tomorrow morning so I won't be able to take screenshots for day 3.  @Matthew92@JJPalmer@UK_Palms If you want to, or anyone else. 

[Matthew92]

Screenshots this morning around 7:10am EST

 

Boy Gainesville has sure been through the wringer : 3rd night in a row of mid to low 20’s.

[Matthew92]

[Matthew92]

[Matthew92]

[Ktrack11]

1 hour ago, Matthew92 said:

Nasty cold pocket in east of Naples / Collier county. 22 degrees. Wonder if anyone has pics out that way? Probably a massacre smh.

[Aceraceae]

4 hours ago, Ktrack11 said:

Nasty cold pocket in east of Naples / Collier county. 22 degrees. Wonder if anyone has pics out that way? Probably a massacre smh.

Sounds more like what you'd expect farther north in Highland county such as Archbold Bio station in Venus with dry sand. 

[kinzyjr]

The NWS Airport records from the afternoon of 01/31/2026-02/03/2026 are provided here in ZIP format.

20260203_obhistory.zip

[aabell]

10 hours ago, Ktrack11 said:

Nasty cold pocket in east of Naples / Collier county. 22 degrees. Wonder if anyone has pics out that way? Probably a massacre smh.

That pin is pretty far from anything other than a few scattered houses, deep into where Golden Gate becomes uninhabitable swampland. I'm skeptical that it actually got down to 22 there but in any case I'm sure the palmettos and bald cypress are fine. 

[Matthew92]

Chilly Panhandle this morning. East of Tallahassee everywhere is in the 40’s and above. 

[Ktrack11]

On 2/3/2026 at 7:36 PM, aabell said:

That pin is pretty far from anything other than a few scattered houses, deep into where Golden Gate becomes uninhabitable swampland. I'm skeptical that it actually got down to 22 there but in any case I'm sure the palmettos and bald cypress are fine. 

Perhaps, but this pin is near a Master Planned Community known as Ave Maria, FL. Looks like there’s a small college there too. 

[aabell]

13 minutes ago, Ktrack11 said:

Perhaps, but this pin is near a Master Planned Community known as Ave Maria, FL. Looks like there’s a small college there too. 

Ave Maria is north of there, you can see the name under a pin with a reading of 39.

I just checked the WUnderground stations in Ave Maria and it looks like the lowest temperature for the whole event was 31.5, on Feb 1, with the next two nights staying above freezing. 

[Matthew92]

Taken at about 7:30am EST

[Matthew92]

[bubba]

This was the coldest winter in Southeast Florida since 1989. However, it was not as cold this year as in 1989. PBIA recorded two nights with lows of 31°F with freezing temperatures for a total of three hours. These are red sealing wax palms, which have been planted for three years in a building off Phipps Plaza in PB. While they are not exactly flourishing, they are unprotected and are surviving. I should note that the same nights that PBIA recorded their record low temperatures, a weather station on the weather underground platform recorded nights of low temperatures of 38.3°F and 39°.3 Fahrenheit respectively. 

 

 

[bubba]

One thing lost in this discussion about tropical palms and foliage in cold events is the amount of heat in the particular climate. Notwithstanding this February 2026 cold event, the average February temperature at PBIA was 64.82 degrees Fahrenheit for this admittedly cold event. Of course, the Koppen/Trewartha classification for tropical is an average temperature during the entire year of not less than 64.4°F.

This is the PBIA weather underground site for the month of February:

https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/west-palm-beach/KPBI/date/2026-2

The average temperatures for the months of January 2026 and December 2025 were 67.01°F and 71°.84°F, respectively on the weather underground site for PBIA.

The average temperature in the month of December 1989 at PBIA on the weather underground site during that cataclysmic event was 57° 48. F. The following months in January and February 1990 averaged 66.37°F and 70.04°F, respectively. It warmed up quickly after the devastating 1989 event.

https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/west-palm-beach/KPBI/date/1989-12

The closest and most reliable weather underground station in Palm Beach is Device One-KFLPALMB 251. During February 2026, it registered an average temperature of 67.8 F. with an ultimate low of 38°.3 F for the month of February 2026.

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KFLPALMB251/table/2026-02-28/2026-02-28/monthly