JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – We are enjoying near-record warmth as we ring in the New Year -- but we deserve it! We’ve seen more freezes so far this winter than we had ALL of last winter and we’re only about a third of the way through the season.
In December we woke up at or below 32° on seven days, almost doubling our average number of mornings below freezing for December, which is 4.2. Last year we only saw one morning below freezing during the month.
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Little did we know that was just the beginning a of season of few freezes. For the rest of winter we only saw low temperatures below 32° on two other days in January. We did not get below freezing in February or in March.
So we’ve gotten below freezing seven times so far this year, compared to only three freezes for the entire season last year- what does that mean for the rest of the season? We will most likely see a few more freezes in January and February.
On average, we see six mornings below freezing in January and three in February. By March we usually start to warm up a bit and only average one morning below 32°. If we were to be perfectly average from this point forward, we would end up with 17 mornings below freezing. If we were to follow our December trend of nearly doubling our average days below freezing we would rack up a whopping 27 mornings below freezing. This is highly unlikely!
The good news for weather wimps like me and our weary plants: There won’t be any freezes with the upcoming cold front moving through this weekend. The front will bring low temperatures in the upper 30s and low 40s starting on Monday morning.
Long term forecast models hint at rather quiet weather for us (no freezes!) through mid-January, which is a long term forecast model run I would LOVE to verify.
Enjoy!