Florida Winter 2021-2022

[Estlander]

9 minutes ago, ruskinPalms said:

Anyone notice how it is much warmer in north Florida than central Florida right now??

Oh yes, a very pleasant 57 degrees here in the northwest tonight 

[Jimbean]

Readings are all over the place

[pj_orlando_z9b]

Our own crazy range. My temp went up in the last hour. 13 degree spread within 5 miles. 

[RedRabbit]

6 minutes ago, pj_orlando_z9b said:

Our own crazy range. My temp went up in the last hour. 13 degree spread within 5 miles. 

Your Belle Isle climate has really proven reliable through this. I’m very optimistic about your z10 palms long term. 

[aabell]

Not just the panhandle, it's currently warmer in parts of southern Alberta than in Homestead.

[Merlyn]

Welp...36 degrees here in the backyard now and steadily dropping.  The airport is reading 45F and they are predicting 38 overnight.  So if I guesstimate that means around 29F for the backyard and 32F for the front.  We'll see if my SWAG is reasonably accurate... 

[Jimbean]

[Aceraceae]

^^

That lower freeze circle looks to be right around FW1889 SW of Venus FL which is currently rising in temp/humidity. 

Nevermind it's more like south of Immokalee, but the Venus station also briefly reported a freezing temp.  But it seems erroneous to have an isolated freeze right over Lake Okeechobee. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Aceraceae

[NickJames]

Almost comical at this point 

[JLM]

23 hours ago, Estlander said:

Earlier today all weather sites I checked showed my low for tonight as between 35-39F. It’s midnight and I’m sitting at 27.5F. This is nuts. Talk about getting it completely wrong. 

Was about the same temperature here at that time. My temperature didnt drop much if any at all from midnight until sunrise. May have briefly dropped to 26F, but otherwise we ran at about the same temperatures, which is extremely unusual. Currently 47F here right now, insane how its already in the 30's down in central FL right now. Good luck down there tonight!

PS: Queens showing frond damage from last weekends 22F, maybe it got colder that that in other parts of the yard? All of the fronds on my backyard Queen is showing spotting or a bronze type color on them. Lower fronds on the same palm with scorched leaflets. Queens out front showing minimal burn. Washingtonia robusta fronds out front showing the same bronze color on some fronds. Everything else looks fine, and believe it or not the Majesty's spear is still mostly green.

[JLM]

Looks like as of almost midnight, the warmest places in Florida are Ft Walton Beach, Santa Rosa Beach, and Panama City. All three of those places coming in at 58F. 

Edit: Its colder at Vero Beach Regional Airport, FL (34F) than it is at Tuscaloosa Regional Airport, AL (36F) and Nashville International Airport, TN (36F) right now. Insanity.

Edited January 31, 2022 by JLM

[pj_orlando_z9b]

9 minutes ago, JLM said:

Looks like as of almost midnight, the warmest places in Florida are Ft Walton Beach, Santa Rosa Beach, and Panama City. All three of those places coming in at 58F. 

Makes sense. Air coming from the Yucatan around that high pressure right to the panhandle coast. Very little winds central and especially Southern FL is a perfect storm for radiational cooling. These are cool maps. 

[JLM]

2 minutes ago, pj_orlando_z9b said:

Makes sense. Air coming from the Yucatan around that high pressure right to the panhandle coast. Very little winds central and especially Southern FL is a perfect storm for radiational cooling. These are cool maps. 

Its about 50F in New Orleans right now, which is interesting. Seems that the eastern MS coast the the FL panhandle coast is warm (mid to upper 50's) while the rest of the Gulf Coast west of MS (except for south of Galveston TX) is cooler (upper 40's to low 50's). Of course, the FL peninsula is colder than most of the Gulf states right now. There is an approaching low pressure system over TX/NM which is pulling in warmer temperatures/moisture into Texas, this is sliding right in behind this high pressure system over the next several days.

[RedRabbit]

I thought it was interesting to see this. Here you see areas by the water (Tampa Bay) in the mid 30s and a few sensors inland that are in the low 40s.

This seems to be legit and there’s a good reason for it. The warmer area is the highest elevation in Pinellas County at around 110’. Usually elevation doesn’t matter too much in Florida, but it does on the Lake Wales ridge and, evidently, this portion of Pinellas County. 

[Collectorpalms]

Havana, Cuba 41F at airport. Same temperature as Vancouver, BC Canada. 

[Estlander]

Check out the temp in Freeport, the Bahamas!

[Brian M]

Stayed in the 40's all night, only down to 41. Still cold but a much appreciated 15 degree change from the night before.

[Walt]

9 hours ago, Hombre de Palmas said:

Good luck tonight.

No luck here. It's 5:20 a.m. and it's colder this morning than it was yesterday morning. In  my 24 years of living here I've never seen such a temperature spread between my place just two miles N.W. of town (Lake Placid). It's 40 degrees in town and 27+ degrees in the open yard (that I hand measured).  I'm getting 28.7 degrees from my La Crosse sensor I have in a Stevenson screen. I'm colder than Archbold Biological Station, that's reporting 33 degrees, and that place has long been considered the coldest spot in my county.  Note it's 5:22 a.m. on the screen save. 

[JJPalmer]

Coldest temps seem to occurred around 2 am here in Pinellas County. Some cold readings out there this morning. Many places have been below 40° since midnight.

[JJPalmer]

Patchy frost throughout Pinellas. Actually had to scrape the windshield off this morning. Not ideal. 

[Scott W]

55 minutes ago, JJPalmer said:

Patchy frost throughout Pinellas. Actually had to scrape the windshield off this morning. Not ideal. 

That's crazy!  Thankfully none of that where I'm at here I Jacksonville.  My thermometers recorded a low of 30f yesterday, so I probably didn't need even need to cover anything up.  But as always that Boy Scout motto kicked in.....

[Walt]

I did a test run this morning, driving from my property to up in town (2 miles S.W. of me, but up on the Lake Wales Ridge). When I got into my car (I left it out in the yard all night as I have my potted palms in my garage) the thermometer read 30 degrees. As I drove through my property the temperature dropped to 28 degrees by the time I reached the road at the entrance to my property 600 feet away. As I drove through my neighborhood the temperature dropped to 27 degrees. I then started the ascent up the hill on the ridge. and into town. The temperature climbed steadily.  As I got into town my car thermometer read 39 degrees! That's a 12 degree difference in just two miles and 80 feet in elevation (difference from town and my property according to the elevation app on my Apple phone). 

I'm going to upload all the video I took this morning while driving and showing my car thermometer (and my narrative) to my video editing program, edit it as needed, then upload it to YouTube as documentation for anyone who cares to see and understand the physics of it.

I've known for many, many years how elevation effected air temperature, and I proved it to myself by looking at the temperature changes in my car's thermometer as I was driving. But until this morning I have never documented it with videos and photos.

This morning is the coldest it's been in about 6 years or more. I know the last 5-6 winters my open yard temperature stayed just over 30 degrees on the single coldest day of the winter. This morning was predicted to be warmer than yesterday morning. I've heard that erroneous song before by the weather service. I stopped trusting their forecasts long ago.

[D. Morrowii]

Low of 37 this morning with frost on the windshield.

[chinandega81]

I noticed how extreme microclimates have been with this cold front last night and this morning. Some ridiculously cold readings while nearby 15 degrees warmer easily. I don't know if that's because more people have more thermometers and some are placed on ground level as opposed to several feet higher up?

Regardless, this cold is impressive. It was 39 in Havana Cuba last night and this morning...and 40s into  inland, central Cuba, despite being near 60 directly on the coast. I thought the Florida Straights would have modified the air mass more for Cuba but aparently it was a straight shot ove land until those 90 miles. 

 

[TampaPalms]

This is why nobody should rely on their local airports temperatures. Tampa for example runways were realigned and reconstructed a couple years ago. Since then temperatures have been running a lot higher because the sensor is closer to the runways. This has been a problem all across the United States and like this local meteorologist is saying, skewing climate info. 

 

@Mike_Clay: Another example this morning of how the urban heat island around the Tampa Airport gauge is skewing our climate records. When I first moved here 24 years ago, TPA would be much colder than St Pete on a calm cold night. TPA would be colder than MacDill too. https://twitter.com/Mike_Clay/status/1488126185431306241/photo/1

Edited January 31, 2022 by TampaPalms

[chinandega81]

7 minutes ago, TampaPalms said:

This is why nobody should rely on their local airports temperatures. Tampa for example runways were realigned and reconstructed a couple years ago. Since then temperatures have been running a lot higher because the sensor is closer to the runways. This has been a problem all across the United States and like this local meteorologist is saying, skewing climate info. 

 

@Mike_Clay: Another example this morning of how the urban heat island around the Tampa Airport gauge is skewing our climate records. When I first moved here 24 years ago, TPA would be much colder than St Pete on a calm cold night. TPA would be colder than MacDill too. https://twitter.com/Mike_Clay/status/1488126185431306241/photo/1

Same in Miami. The airport temps aren't representative of what most neighborhoods look like. On nights like this, there is so much variation and the meteorologists do not communicate the massive range clearly. They just forecast for the airport since no one wants to see a low forecast from 25-42 degrees. But I have to think they could zoom in and show which areas will stay warmer since it isn't only locations "near water" rather down wind....and of course the elevation and urban influences too.

[Merlyn]

9 hours ago, Merlyn said:

Welp...36 degrees here in the backyard now and steadily dropping.  The airport is reading 45F and they are predicting 38 overnight.  So if I guesstimate that means around 29F for the backyard and 32F for the front.  We'll see if my SWAG is reasonably accurate... 

I "lucked out" at my place, the temperatures were steadily dropping until about 2AM, bottoming out at 31.6 in the backyard.  Instead of continuing to drop, there was a 2 hour rise to about 33F and a curious "bump" in temperatures around 4AM on several sensors.  I suspect the wind picked up and stirred up the growing frost inversion layer.  It still frosted fairly heavily, but not as bad as Saturday night and Sunday night a week ago.  Once it warms up I'll have to pull my data and make a complete chart of the weekend.

[ruskinPalms]

Got down around 34F last night in my area. Lots of frost around though. Will have to see how much damage my yard took when I get home from work today. 

[RedRabbit]

24 minutes ago, TampaPalms said:

This is why nobody should rely on their local airports temperatures. Tampa for example runways were realigned and reconstructed a couple years ago. Since then temperatures have been running a lot higher because the sensor is closer to the runways. This has been a problem all across the United States and like this local meteorologist is saying, skewing climate info. 

 

@Mike_Clay: Another example this morning of how the urban heat island around the Tampa Airport gauge is skewing our climate records. When I first moved here 24 years ago, TPA would be much colder than St Pete on a calm cold night. TPA would be colder than MacDill too. https://twitter.com/Mike_Clay/status/1488126185431306241/photo/1

Wow, that TPA sensor is just joke at this point. Thanks for sharing!

Edited January 31, 2022 by RedRabbit

[TampaPalms]

12 minutes ago, chinandega81 said:

Same in Miami. The airport temps aren't representative of what most neighborhoods look like. On nights like this, there is so much variation and the meteorologists do not communicate the massive range clearly. They just forecast for the airport since no one wants to see a low forecast from 25-42 degrees. But I have to think they could zoom in and show which areas will stay warmer since it isn't only locations "near water" rather down wind....and of course the elevation and urban influences too.

I will say our local mets are a lot better with local temps than the NWS unfortunately. The NWS had me at 38 last night and we were 34 with frost. The same exact scenario happened last week. Infamously in 2018 they were off by several degrees also and I never protected and lost some perennials. I'm not bashing them, I'm stating that local geography is rapidly changing from swampland and forest to a more urban environment and is getting more complicated. There was an article I read after the 2010 freeze that stated areas that were swampland and are drained get actually colder than they were previously. It is happening across South Florida and last night was evident of the former swamp land being colder than even areas in north Florida. 

[SubTropicRay]

About Tampa's airport thermometer from a NewChannel 8 story -  Posted: Oct 4, 2018 / 05:16 PM EDT 

“The weather instrumentation was there when it was called Drew Field. Drew Field looked a lot different than what Tampa International looks like today. There was a lot more vegetation back then. And now, we have a lot more pavement. So the official temperature is getting warmer because of that real-time expansion of the urban area.”

That pretty much sums up the entire area and not just the thermometer's location.  MacDill AFB on the other hand has changed very little in the last 50 years.  It's readings represent old Tampa weather and is colder than most urban neighborhood readings today.  The real temps are somewhere in between the airport and the AFB.  

 

[JJPalmer]

The most extensive damage I’ve seen so far is actually on the sea grapes off I-275 near DTSP exits, especially the 38th and 54th Ave exits. Will be interesting to see what appears over the coming days and weeks. 

[PalmatierMeg]

41.2F this a.m. Yesterday at sunset - ca 6 p.m. - temp was 49.5F. Three hours later it had fallen to 44.0F and looked to be on track to match or exceed yesterday's low of 38.3F. Between 9 p.m. last night and 8 a.m. this morning something, i.e., change of wind speed or direction etc., put the brakes on the free fall. I am relieved. By 10 a.m. this morning temp had rebounded to 53.6F.

[NickJames]

Last night was another rough night, got down to 30 and stayed there for many hours. Zero wind was recorded the entire evening. When I say zero, I mean literally nothing - which I’m sure exacerbated the situation. It’s possible there was some mixing higher up without the wind block I get from neighboring properties. 
 

Moderate frost. Not nearly as bad as last Sunday night’s frost. 
 

Yet again - the propane tank top heaters saved the coconut and adonidia. I very much regret not buying more propane tanks and using them on my royals as I firmly believe the tank top heaters are some of the most effective options, particularly during radiational cooling. I don’t drink or gamble, so plants really are where my money goes. 
 

I do also love the dramatic looking ice that forms on a propane tank that is rapidly exhausting its supply. 

[Jimbean]

The best I can tell, my area got down to 36F give or take a couple of degrees.  The readings ranged from 32.2 to 41.4.  West of I-95 I saw some 28F readings

[RedRabbit]

1 hour ago, SubTropicRay said:

About Tampa's airport thermometer from a NewChannel 8 story -  Posted: Oct 4, 2018 / 05:16 PM EDT 

“The weather instrumentation was there when it was called Drew Field. Drew Field looked a lot different than what Tampa International looks like today. There was a lot more vegetation back then. And now, we have a lot more pavement. So the official temperature is getting warmer because of that real-time expansion of the urban area.”

That pretty much sums up the entire area and not just the thermometer's location.  MacDill AFB on the other hand has changed very  little in the last 50 years.  It's readings represent old Tampa weather and is colder than most urban neighborhood readings today.  The real temps are somewhere in between.  The gap with PIE has closed over the decades.

 

The area has gotten warmer, but I really don’t think it’s as warm as TPA suggests. It would need to be very urban, like downtown Tampa or downtown St. Pete to maybe get that kind of boost. 

Regarding South Tampa, the weather stations have been very mixed and usually not as warm as TPA. Along Kennedy seems to benefit from urban heat, but not so much south of there. Within a block of the water is warm, but I’ve been seeing some cold readings in interior of the interbay penninsula. To the best of my knowledge there’s not much interesting growing between Manhattan and roughly MacDill either. I know there’s some good spots but it seems hit or miss so I wouldn’t move back there expecting a solid climate (though I'm sure it’s a little better than frigid Westchase ).

Edited January 31, 2022 by RedRabbit

[sonoranfans]

2 hours ago, RedRabbit said:

Wow, that TPA sensor is just joke at this point. Thanks for sharing!

maybe a still night(wind wise) with lots of jets running its a huge active and passive(asphalt/masonry) heat island.  In an advective event it probably barely shows 1-2 degress.  These still nights leave a lot of influence to nearby wooded areas, canopy, passive solar effects of masonry.  It also means that the actual temperature data are probably even more variable locally than the sensors on the map shows.  It means you can influence this kind of radiative cold with things like canopy, hardscape firepit, windblock, and especially water proximity.  My yard saw no frost again, I have quite a few palms no open areas larger than 15'x20'.  Out in the open (4) small undivided dypsis pembana seedlings 8-10" tall had no observed effect and no frost.  However to the back of the yard are 5 acre lots of open grass lawns obviously frosted just 75 yards away.  Might be a 3-5F degree difference between my yard and that open yard 100 yards to the back.  If you are going to plant out the yard more densely you gain at a good half a zone in this kind of cold event.   New neighborhoods in general will not have this microclimate advantage, they will get a minimal heat trapping advantage like my place did in 2010.

[JJPalmer]

2 hours ago, chinandega81 said:

I noticed how extreme microclimates have been with this cold front last night and this morning. Some ridiculously cold readings while nearby 15 degrees warmer easily. I don't know if that's because more people have more thermometers and some are placed on ground level as opposed to several feet higher up?

Regardless, this cold is impressive. It was 39 in Havana Cuba last night and this morning...and 40s into  inland, central Cuba, despite being near 60 directly on the coast. I thought the Florida Straights would have modified the air mass more for Cuba but aparently it was a straight shot ove land until those 90 miles. 

 

Part of the difficulty in comparing climates using WUnderground reports is, as you mentioned, variability in how people set up their PWS.  The thermometer, which should be mounted with a ventilated radiation shield, should be between 4-6.5 feet above the ground, the anemometer should be ~33 feet above the ground, and the rain gauge should be 4-6 feet above the ground.  Most PWS are all-in-one systems meaning compromises must be made in order to properly mount.  Either your temperature sensor is in the correct spot, your anemometer is in the correct spot, or both are somewhat compromised.  

To the extent you can find and verify the locations of PWS is extremely helpful in determining what stations report accurately. 

https://www.weather.gov/media/epz/mesonet/CWOP-Siting.pdf (PDF Warning)

[sonoranfans]

It may also be worth considering that absolute lows on your yard sensor that may be due to a temporary breeze (and then rise right after) are not as important as perhaps 10-20 min average temps.

[chinandega81]

5 hours ago, TampaPalms said:

I will say our local mets are a lot better with local temps than the NWS unfortunately. The NWS had me at 38 last night and we were 34 with frost. The same exact scenario happened last week. Infamously in 2018 they were off by several degrees also and I never protected and lost some perennials. I'm not bashing them, I'm stating that local geography is rapidly changing from swampland and forest to a more urban environment and is getting more complicated. There was an article I read after the 2010 freeze that stated areas that were swampland and are drained get actually colder than they were previously. It is happening across South Florida and last night was evident of the former swamp land being colder than even areas in north Florida. 

Here in SE FL I can tell you the old areas along the coastal ridge are just as cold as Redland (farming area near Homestead). We have larger lots, little large, commercial, paved over areas and no retention ponds or canals like all the newer suburban areas have. If the NWS would just look at weather underground temps and see the same pattern consistently, they could make accurate forecasts. It's always been this way since the area has been developed. But they do a broadbrush approach: warmer near the coast, progressively cooler as you move inland, which is not how it works here. It is only warm within a stone's throw of the water...in a light onshore flow. Then it drops dramatically until far enough inland to hit densly developed newer areas where temps shoot up by several degrees. It then again drops beyond the urban developed area. Oh well.

 

I can imagine a drained swamp being a cold sink for sure! I think the Everglades definantly keeps SE FL warmer the SW FL whereas they have a cold land breeze from the Big Cypress stands with less water. On the other hand we have many miles of sawgrass and water to buffer the worst temps.