Florida Winter 2022-2023

[kinzyjr]

23 minutes ago, Zoltan said:

I’m all good cold over at least for now. Look like all pulled trough this cold time . 
jacksonville fl not sure what was the coldest temp maybe 25-24.

Good to see everything is alright.

[ruskinPalms]

So far no real damage is showing up. Here are a few pics of things I would have expected to see damage from a light freeze and prolonged temps in the 30s and 40s. Any of the brown frizzy leaf tips you see is damage from Ian and Nicole.

[JLM]

All potted stuff has been taken outside and watered. It feels like Spring outside right now with the warm temperatures and the breeze.

[Scott W]

My truck thermometer read 26 two mornings in a row, followed by two mornings around 30 here on Pottsuburg Creek.  

Due to my work schedule and the holidays I had no time to wrap anything.  Really only have a handful these days that I'm pushing Zone with, but overall they don't look too bad, just some cold damage on the exposed fronds, spears all look good at the moment.

Satakentia

Roystonea 

Adonidia merrillii

These three juvenile foxtail were all side by side....two look dead while the third is nice and green.  All collected from the same tree in Treasure Island two years ago.

This unknown Dypsis was unfazed...originally said to be a hybrid.

Beccariophoenix alfredii unfazed under the oaks...

Caryota maxima himilaya

And most importantly my Mule palm seedlings unfazed in the open air shade house.

[JLM]

Rainy week ahead. Highs in the 70's with lows in the 50's and 60's. NWS is forecasting approximately 4.63 inches of rainfall during this 7 day period. This number will fluxuate. This may or may not help with the recovery process. I will have to cover the pygmy dates.

[ruskinPalms]

25 minutes ago, Scott W said:

My truck thermometer read 26 two mornings in a row, followed by two mornings around 30 here on Pottsuburg Creek.  

Due to my work schedule and the holidays I had no time to wrap anything.  Really only have a handful these days that I'm pushing Zone with, but overall they don't look too bad, just some cold damage on the exposed fronds, spears all look good at the moment.

Satakentia

Roystonea 

Adonidia merrillii

These three juvenile foxtail were all side by side....two look dead while the third is nice and green.  All collected from the same tree in Treasure Island two years ago.

This unknown Dypsis was unfazed...originally said to be a hybrid.

Beccariophoenix alfredii unfazed under the oaks...

Caryota maxima himilaya

And most importantly my Mule palm seedlings unfazed in the open air shade house.

That green foxtail seedling is a keeper! I wish someone would selectively breed cold hardy foxtails etc.  Palms that mature fast and go to seed fast could be selected for in a couple decades (?) which is within the realm of possibility for our younger palm talkers to profit from in the future. And you know you don’t have to wait for natural freezes to occur since we all have freezers. Foxtails seed profusely and I would start with known long term palms that are seeding in colder areas. Very easy to germinate 1000s of foxtails and subject them to artificial freezes (I’d select for 26F to start, you experiment with duration etc) and then propagate survivors and the recross later in their life, rinse and repeat 😉

Edited December 29, 2022 by ruskinPalms

[kinzyjr]

3 hours ago, ruskinPalms said:

That green foxtail seedling is a keeper! I wish someone would selectively breed cold hardy foxtails etc.  Palms that mature fast and go to seed fast could be selected for in a couple decades (?) which is within the realm of possibility for our younger palm talkers to profit from in the future. And you know you don’t have to wait for natural freezes to occur since we all have freezers. Foxtails seed profusely and I would start with known long term palms that are seeding in colder areas. Very easy to germinate 1000s of foxtails and subject them to artificial freezes (I’d select for 26F to start, you experiment with duration etc) and then propagate survivors and the recross later in their life, rinse and repeat 😉

Actually, I do the initial phase of this locally. 

Any pre-2010 palm here has likely been subjected to 26F or at least less twice; with anything that is pre-2008 having another dip in the 26F pool.  I keep a spreadsheet handy of the palms that have withstood the freezes in Jan. 2008/2010/2018/2022 and others going forward.  The gold standard for me is if they were able to survive from at least 2010 forward.  The airport actually recorded 23F in Jan. 2010, but the stations in town are between 25F-30F for the most part.  I recorded 26F near the Lakeland Square Mall.

We have Wodyetia bifurcata that have survived all of these and are flowering.   While it is easy to just go buy a Foxtail, there is nothing like getting a "known good" cultivar.  Mine all come from seeds gathered from the specimens at the Bank of America building.  These have been around since before 2007.  During the cold snap in January and the most recent cold snap, none of my seedlings show any discoloration.  I know of at least one fatality from the January cold snap elsewhere in the area.  My work with them doesn't include subjecting them to artificial freezes, though.

Adonidia is another good choice as they also exhibit a wide range in cold tolerance from one specimen to another.  A few of mine come from the Lake Wales Medical Center since the adults there have been around a long time and have seen 26F or less several times.  @palmsOrl liked to collect from the Sanford Airport.

Veitchia is another close relative where this seems helpful.  There are several around that seed and are pre-2010 in Polk.

If my Carpentaria make it to seeding size, they might make a decent seed source.  They've been through last winter and the December freeze without any help.

Others collected locally include: Dictyosperma album 'conjugatum', Ptychosperma elegans, Hyphaene coriacea, Archontophoenix alexandrae, anything formerly Dypsis including Triangles/Teddy Bears/Golden Cane, Saribus rotundifolius, Pseudophoenix sargentii, Caryota mitis

I've seen some other stuff flowering, like Zombia, but flowers don't always yield the prize ☹️

[pj_orlando_z9b]

While my damage materializes in this warmer weather, nothing appears too serious yet.  Some frond damage to the unprotected bottle palm, red copper is defoliating, and potted tropicals (under a roof and against the house) are curling leaves which is a first for me. 

 

A mile South of me, this unprotected coconut below seems fine. A few miles inland away from the lake, a decent sized coconut has a lot of yellow fronds. 

 

 

[ruskinPalms]

17 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

Actually, I do the initial phase of this locally. 

Any pre-2010 palm here has likely been subjected to 26F or at least less twice; with anything that is pre-2008 having another dip in the 26F pool.  I keep a spreadsheet handy of the palms that have withstood the freezes in Jan. 2008/2010/2018/2022 and others going forward.  The gold standard for me is if they were able to survive from at least 2010 forward.  The airport actually recorded 23F in Jan. 2010, but the stations in town are between 25F-30F for the most part.  I recorded 26F near the Lakeland Square Mall.

We have Wodyetia bifurcata that have survived all of these and are flowering.   While it is easy to just go buy a Foxtail, there is nothing like getting a "known good" cultivar.  Mine all come from seeds gathered from the specimens at the Bank of America building.  These have been around since before 2007.  During the cold snap in January and the most recent cold snap, none of my seedlings show any discoloration.  I know of at least one fatality from the January cold snap elsewhere in the area.  My work with them doesn't include subjecting them to artificial freezes, though.

Adonidia is another good choice as they also exhibit a wide range in cold tolerance from one specimen to another.  A few of mine come from the Lake Wales Medical Center since the adults there have been around a long time and have seen 26F or less several times.  @palmsOrl liked to collect from the Sanford Airport.

Veitchia is another close relative where this seems helpful.  There are several around that seed and are pre-2010 in Polk.

If my Carpentaria make it to seeding size, they might make a decent seed source.  They've been through last winter and the December freeze without any help.

Others collected locally include: Dictyosperma album 'conjugatum', Ptychosperma elegans, Hyphaene coriacea, Archontophoenix alexandrae, anything formerly Dypsis including Triangles/Teddy Bears/Golden Cane, Saribus rotundifolius, Pseudophoenix sargentii, Caryota mitis

I've seen some other stuff flowering, like Zombia, but flowers don't always yield the prize ☹️

Nice!! If you ever want to offload some of those teddy bears I’d be happy buy some!! Unfortunately, the P. elegans seedlings I’m growing in the ground now hale from Captiva island where I gathered seeds a few years ago. I couldn’t have picked a warmer area to get seeds from 🤣

Edited December 30, 2022 by ruskinPalms

[ruskinPalms]

Lakeland sounds like an amazing place to gather cold hardy seeds! 😁

[kinzyjr]

19 hours ago, ruskinPalms said:

Lakeland sounds like an amazing place to gather cold hardy seeds! 😁

19 hours ago, ruskinPalms said:

Nice!! If you ever want to offload some of those teddy bears I’d be happy buy some!! Unfortunately, the P. elegans seedlings I’m growing in the ground now hale from Captiva island where I gathered seeds a few years ago. I couldn’t have picked a warmer area to get seeds from 🤣

 

Usually the Teddy Bears from the longest surviving palm flower in June and are in fruit sometime around August.  I'll take a look to see if there is anything viable on the ground.  If there is, I'll sprout them and you could have some of the offspring if you like.

[JLM]

Forecast showing lows in the mid to upper 30's end of next week. I definitely couldve used a longer break from the cold, but oh well.



Anyways, i trimmed off the dead fronds from one of the pygmy dates and one of the majesties. The fronds of the pygmy date had lots of water content, maybe i shouldnt have cut them all? Although, the Majesty was the same, and in fact it was a lot like elephant ears when i cut the fronds off, i was able to squeeze water out of it. The Majesty is probably a goner, the entire palm was soft.

This excess amount of water is probably partially linked to the 2+ inches of rainfall yesterday. It rained for damn near 6 hours.

[Matthew92]

 

 

[JLM]

35 minutes ago, Matthew92 said:

 

 

Already wounded here, dont need to get shot again.

[TaylorPlantHunter]

On 12/28/2022 at 5:38 PM, redant said:

Jupiter. I'd guess seeing a coconut palm in your area is as rare as a unicorn.

No it’s not that rare but also not too common. Older coconuts with 10+ ft of clear trunk are not very abundant. Just a little south of me in Lake Placid there are many coconuts with 15-20 ft of clear trunk. The many lakes and higher elevation keep it more moderated there on cold nights. There were more trunking coconuts on the lakes by my house before 2010 according to the neighbors.

[RedRabbit]

As I reported in the freeze damage thread, after two nights of ~30f none of my palms had any damage. My Hong Kong orchid is still flowering even… I was expecting a lot of damage when I got home, but it looks like almost nothing happened.

[pj_orlando_z9b]

6 hours ago, RedRabbit said:

As I reported in the freeze damage thread, after two nights of ~30f none of my palms had any damage. My Hong Kong orchid is still flowering even… I was expecting a lot of damage when I got home, but it looks like almost nothing happened.

Awesome, I definitely took damage at 30 and 31 for two nights. Maybe combined with the duration of cold. Crotons are losing some leaves as did red copper. Biggest hit for me appears to be my bottle palm. 

[kinzyjr]

22 hours ago, pj_orlando_z9b said:

Awesome, I definitely took damage at 30 and 31 for two nights. Maybe combined with the duration of cold. Crotons are losing some leaves as did red copper. Biggest hit for me appears to be my bottle palm.

I've seen a few like this over here today.  Then there are some only a short distance away with no damage.  Go figure. 🙄

[Can't think of username]

As for the present, I'm wondering how the cold hole Tallahassee airport will do with regards to last frosts. Being a Southeast US weather enthusiast monitoring first and last frosts is a very big winter event for me, and despite FSU Tallahassee being my main site to monitor I'm hoping the airport can get some kind of 'compensation' for that freak October 20 2022 first frost.
Compensation meaning an earlier than normal last frost at least as early as February.  It seems to be somewhat uncommon for them given that they're of course a cold hole, but recent February last frosts that would be great compensation if they were repeated are February 14 2012, February 20 2015, and February 28 2014/2016/2020. 

If all the stars align they might even break their all time record for earliest last frost. That would be January 2 1949, and they haven't had frost since December 28, so currently they have a shot at breaking it and it would be pretty awesome compensation if they did!😃
 

[JLM]

Expecting a low of 31F tonight, same thing tomorrow night. We warm back up very quickly going into next week though. Im kinda already "done" with this winter and just want it to be over. I know thats not gonna happen though.

A lot of things that should be green is brown. The trees are much more bare than ive seen in past winters because the Christmas freeze killed off any leaves that were still living. My Queens are not happy at all, and i have dead palms in the ground still. I just need to see some life again. I cant wait for Spring.

[kinzyjr]

Looks like two nights in the high 30s to low 40s plus one night around 35F with frost currently.  At least the highs won't be below 50F.

 

[Sabal_Louisiana]

Whereas 35 is "unusually" cold for central Florida, what's especially odd about this event is the lack of temperature gradient to the north. Nashville and Evansville will only be about 8 degrees colder this weekend than Lakeland, with projected lows dropping to around 26 or 27 up there.

[Almisa]

4 hours ago, Sabal_Louisiana said:

Whereas 35 is "unusually" cold for central Florida, what's especially odd about this event is the lack of temperature gradient to the north. Nashville and Evansville will only be about 8 degrees colder this weekend than Lakeland, with projected lows dropping to around 26 or 27 up there.

These are strange times. It was 60 degrees in Boston today and an Orca Whale - NEVER seen in SE Fl -  beached up in Palm Coast. A few days ago.  So protecting the hearts and spears of our palms seems to be the primary and achievable goal for me, at least - the rest of this winter, anyway. That’s what i concentrated on today because  what ever fronds were gonna be burnt happened from Christmas weekend.  The next few days here in No Fla - St Augustine - 9A- promises frost - which we did not get with the cold from before. 

[ruskinPalms]

38F is forecasted for the next two nights with no frost forecasted but I think that will probably change and my forecasted temps will be lowered and frost will become a real possibility. I still have no plans to protect anything. Just gonna see how it goes. 

[JLM]

😑



 

[NickJames]

With that dew point, I don’t see us freezing tonight and it’s still a bit windy and dry out for frost…hmmm. I’m ready nonetheless protecting what’s left after the Christmas hard freeze : D 

[NickJames]

[Jimbean]

The NWS has me forecast at 35F tomorrow morning.

[kinzyjr]

My earlier post showed 35F for a low per NWS.  That has been changed to 31F near town and 30F outside of town (depending on zip code/map position).  TWC has 34F for a predicted low.

 

[RedRabbit]

My forecast still calls for 35f. NWS isn’t making a big deal about this so we’ll see if they’re right. Here’s the forecast overnight lows for Tampa Bay:

[pj_orlando_z9b]

I'm back from a trip to TN to see freeze warnings down to South Florida. Didn't expect that. Must be radiational, which typically helps me here. I don't like the frost forecast tho. 

[NickJames]

[pj_orlando_z9b]

My low was 41. My sprinklers ran so not sure if that helped (or hurt) but most stations around me looked to be 38-42 so in the ballpark. I didn't see any signs of frost. 

[ruskinPalms]

Definitely got cold here. There was frozen dew on top of the car but no frost on plants that I could see. Personal weather stations around me were reading anywhere from 33F to 35F. I’m not in an urban heat island or particularly close to a large body of water so very susceptible to radiational events where I’m at. Will have to see if anything got damaged or not. So far nothing looks damaged but time will tell. Tonight is forecasted for 37F with patchy frost so definitely not out of the woods yet. 

[Jimbean]

The the lows this morning for weather underground stations around me:

38.7F

36.3F

36.3F

34.5F

35.6F

My forecast was 35F, so I'm not complaining.  This winter season is a little colder than average, for ultimate low, for duration, and frequencies of events. 

[kinzyjr]

The airport didn't report from midnight until the 5:50AM report, but had a low of 34F when it did.  I recorded a mix of 32F - 33F, depending on sensor location.  The other weather stations on WUnderground were in the same range.   There was some patchy frost in the grass, plus frost on roof tops and cars.

[NickJames]

Looks like I’m back to overshooting the forecast lol. Down to 28.9. Zero frost. I prepared for the wrong type of event. 

[D. Morrowii]

My forecast was bouncing around quite a bit for this front. As of yesterday afternoon it was predicting a 34-35 low but in the evening they backed off a couple of degrees to 38. The low I recorded was 38.8 which is certainly better than 34. 

[Matthew92]

(In Southeast Okaloosa County FL)

While near the end of this forecast is a little more seasonal- such warm temps in the heart of January is quite something. This winter has been interesting. We had record, near freezing temperatures in late October, a little bit more seasonal cold in November here and there amidst some warm temps, then a torch through December leading up to the Christmas freeze (plants were quite shocked after many days of temps in the mid and even upper 70's). After that, it has been warm as ever for the most part with this current event being more seasonal (recorded 28 deg this morning).  With the amazing warmth (mid to upper 70's) in early January, and then such warmth in this forecast starting on the 17th, this current event is really just a blip on the radar.

So this is the way I see it: much of the time FL sees its first major cold (hard freeze in North/North-Central FL, light freeze in Central FL), it is in January. Then there's a big warmup in February where many people get spring fever and so many plants try to leaf out and bloom: but then the pattern cycles back and we get a cold snap in March. However, being that late, usually only North FL sees freezing temps (recent notable examples include March 2018 and March 2022) as the sun has gotten high enough/weather patterns modified enough that it is never a threat for a significant hard freeze event much anywhere in the state.

This year, we had that first major cold in late December, and besides this brief, seasonal cold spell right now, it has been above average and to see this warmth in January leads me to infer that the pattern will cycle back to a dump of cold air again not in March, but in February (it seems to run in roughly month-long cycles).

An analog to this is the '20-'21 winter where North FL got some significant freezing temps in December (at least here in North FL, hard freeze at my location: actually recorded my coldest temp of the winter at 23 deg if I remember correctly), nothing news-worthy cold-wise in Jan, and then February had the polar vortex unleash: it just happened to not translate all the way east, though we did get below freezing in Northwest FL. Like the warmth we are experiencing now in January, I can't help but think how the plants and trees especially in TX were starting to leaf out and grow after days of above average warmth in January/very early Feb 2021 leading up to that cold outbreak (and were subsequently more severely damaged due to the shock).

I'm also seeing rumblings from various meteorologists I follow regarding a polar vortex displacement. As I've learned: if we get the Sudden Stratospheric Warming (warm air outbreak in the arctic that causes the circular rotating mass of polar/arctic air to displace and move into the lower latitudes) in mid to late Jan, that means we will probably feel the effects in February as there is a delay for the displacement to fully manifest.

 

 

Anyway, just some rambling, somewhat armchair thoughts on the setup of things. Who knows, it could somehow not end up being very cold in Feb down here after all, or there could be a cold air outbreak but it doesn't translate all the way to FL (re: February 2021 palmageddon). But in any case, I will be wary of another significant freezing event in February. Will be interesting to watch.

[PalmatierMeg]

Actual low this a.m.: 42.3F. Predicted: 40F

Predicted low tonight: 40F   I hope for a repeat performance or higher.