Documenting Freeze Damage In South Brevard

[Jimbean]

Generally the area hit 25F on day 2 and 29F on day 3.  The coconuts are completely roasted.  About half of the palms cultivated in the area are defoliated. 

The first batch of pictures is from roaming around Turkey Creek in Palm Bay, of damaged plants that grow wild.

Here are freeze damaged giant leather fern (Acrostichum danaeifolium), Florida Butterfly Orchid (Encyclia tampensis), and Golden Pothos (Epipremnum aureum)

 

[Jimbean]

Here's the freeze damaged palms that have naturalized in Palm Bay, which includes Areca Palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens), Royal Palm (Roystonea regia), Alexandra Palm (Archontophoenix alexandrae), and Burmese Fishtail-Palm (Caryota mitis).

There's a photo of C. lutescens seedlings and Phoenix roebelenii that took no damage.  None of the naturalized Phoenix reclinata or Syagrus romanzoffiana took any damage either. 

 

 

[Aceraceae]

Did coconuts and royals survive on the barrier islands, including Cape Canaveral? 

[Jimbean]

12 hours ago, Aceraceae said:

Did coconuts and royals survive on the barrier islands, including Cape Canaveral? 

I'll check that out soon.  I'm going to post a lot more to here.

The coconuts look cooked west of US1 and I'm not sure the royals make it either, even the pre-1989 royals.  I suppose if they survived 1989 then there's hope, but they look like they will take time to recover.

[Hombre de Palmas]

1 hour ago, Jimbean said:

I'll check that out soon.  I'm going to post a lot more to here.

The coconuts look cooked west of US1 and I'm not sure the royals make it either, even the pre-1989 royals.  I suppose if they survived 1989 then there's hope, but they look like they will take time to recover.

Thanks for all your hard work documenting the resultant damage from this extraordinary event. It's interesting as well as sad. I fear these weather extremes will become more frequent as we go forward in time. 

[Jimbean]

Next stop, Indialantic:

closest weather station here

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KFLINDIA359/graph/2026-02-2/2026-02-2/daily

1/31  34.9

2/1  26.8

2/2  31.8

2/3 40.1

 

 Coconuts

[Jimbean]

Ficus aurea

Not completely dead.  Looks like they will make a recovery here at least.  

[Jimbean]

Mexican plumaria (Plumeria rubra)

All of these trees got knocked back at least year, maybe more.  Some were in better condition, some worse. 

[Jimbean]

Bismarckia nobilis

I suspect that the wind had a lot to do with this damage. 

[Jimbean]

Gumbo limbo (Bursera simaruba)

100% defoliation 

[Jimbean]

False mastic (Sideroxylon foetidissimum)

These were more cold hardy than I thought, apparently more than gumbo limbo, seagrape, or ficus. 

[Hombre de Palmas]

The Araucaria didn't blink amongst the devastation. Not yet anyway.

The wind must have gotten the Bismarck, it was relatively unscathed around here. 

 

[Jimbean]

Sea grape (Coccoloba uvifera) vs red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle)

 

[Jimbean]

Other palms in the area, varying amounts of damage. 

[Hombre de Palmas]

I'm concerned about the mangroves. I will be going over to the island next week to check it out and see how damage is progressing over there.

[Jimbean]

Livistona decora and Thrinax radiata looked like they had no damage at all

[Hombre de Palmas]

25 minutes ago, Jimbean said:

Livistona decora and Thrinax radiata looked like they had no damage at all

They appear to have minimal damage, at least up to this point, around here.

[Jimbean]

Mangroves for the most part seem to be undamaged, but there was some damaged that I noticed and took pictures of

[Jimbean]

Now on to the beefoods, AKA Australian pines (Casuarina)

C. glauca and C. cunninghamiana showed no damage, but C. equisetifolia showed anywhere from 20% to 100% defoliation.  

[Jimbean]

Heptapleurum actinophyllum 

[Jimbean]

Dalbergia ecastaphyllum

Guilandina bonduc

Scaevola taccada

Schinus terebinthifolia

Chrysobalanus icaco (cultivated)

Malvaviscus penduliflorus

Carissa macrocarpa

[Jimbean]

Next stop, downtown Melbourne.  Closest weather station reported the following:

1/31  33.3

2/1  26.0

2/2  28.3

2/3 32.6

 

2010 coconut survivors.  I'm not sure if they will pull through this time.

[Jimbean]

There are several other 2010 survivors in downtown.  One of them is certainly dead, the bud is leaning like it is falling out of the crown, the others look like the coconuts pictured above.  My coconut palm looks like these as well. 

[Jimbean]

The mango trees are defoliated.  I don't know how bad these are set back.  Some of these trees in the old downtown part are pretty old, like the size of laurel oaks.  In residential areas where the trees might be around 30 years old, are in the same damaged condition.

[Jimbean]

Typical sad royals you'll see a lot of throughout downtown.  Not well taken care of and embarrassing.  This freeze could be the final nail in the coffin for these sickly royals 

[Jimbean]

This is what people's landscaping looks like in Brevard as of today.

[Jimbean]

Heptapleurum actinophyllum 

[Jimbean]

Ficus lyrata

[Jimbean]

Palms in general .  Will any of these make it?

[Jimbean]

[Jimbean]

Here's empirical evidence that shows planting on the south facing side of a large building, blocking the cold winds of an advective freeze event, is a sound strategy.  These palms were much less damaged then their nearby counterparts.  In the second photo with the Flamboyant (Delonix regia), at the bottom right, is a volunteer royal with no damage at all, and that wall protected it from those freezing winds. 

[Hombre de Palmas]

Very similar to scenes around PSL. If you had Queens, Sabals, Washies, Roebeliniis, Thatch, Livistona, Sylvesters, Date Palms, Reticulata along with a Ligustrum Hedge you'd be golden round these parts. Just about everything else...not so much. 

...and the mangoes, of which some had flowered early this year, got hit really hard. It would seem that most will pull through, but this was pretty unprecedented here, so only time will tell. They look BAD.

[Jimbean]

Further up A1A, Paradise Beach park

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KFLINDIA326/graph/2026-02-2/2026-02-2/daily

1/31  34.3

2/1  26.2

2/2  32.7

2/3  35.4

 

Sea Hibiscus (Hibiscus tiliaceus)

Coconuts are cooked, even on the beach

Sea Grape (Coccoloba uvifera), I never thought I'd see them like that on our beaches.

Spiny Fiddlewood (Citharexylum spinosum)

last picture are sea grapes facing the beach

[Hombre de Palmas]

6 hours ago, Hombre de Palmas said:

Very similar to scenes around PSL. If you had Queens, Sabals, Washies, Roebeliniis, Thatch, Livistona, Sylvesters, Date Palms, Reticulata along with a Ligustrum Hedge you'd be golden round these parts. Just about everything else...not so much. 

...and the mangoes, of which some had flowered early this year, got hit really hard. It would seem that most will pull through, but this was pretty unprecedented here, so only time will tell. They look BAD.

I forgot the Bismarckarias.  They seem to have weathered the cold+wind so far

 

4 hours ago, Jimbean said:

Further up A1A, Paradise Beach park

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KFLINDIA326/graph/2026-02-2/2026-02-2/daily

1/31  34.3

2/1  26.2

2/2  32.7

2/3  35.4

 

Sea Hibiscus (Hibiscus tiliaceus)

Coconuts are cooked, even on the beach

Sea Grape (Coccoloba uvifera), I never thought I'd see them like that on our beaches.

Spiny Fiddlewood (Citharexylum spinosum)

last picture are sea grapes facing the beach

The Seagrapes are mostly fried all the way to Palm Beach from PSL along the U.S. 1 corridor and on a brief stint we made on the barrier islands. This was observed from a trip I made a couple days ago. Don't know if the damage is superficial, and if they will come back, and at what height? My guess is that they survive, but diminished in size. This is a new experience for me.

[kinzyjr]

@Jimbean Thank you for taking the time to go out and document so much of the area.  The damage here is consistent with what you have there since the temperatures and wind were roughly the same.  Hopefully everything recovers.  The CFPACS Summer Meeting is going to be over there in Satellite Beach this year, so hopefully there is some recovery for folks to see.