Spare a thought for freezing Floridian fruit

7.02.09 15:57

Whilst the UK has been dealing with the snow this past week, citrus fruit farmers in the US state of Florida have had cold weather problems of their own. Arctic air has been flooding down the eastern side of the country, and has led to some freezing nights across Florida’s citrus counties.

Some citrus groves, particularly in the north of Florida, have suffered damage as a result of two consecutive nights of sub-zero temperatures. The cold weather reached citrus-growing counties in central Florida too, allowing air temperatures to fall below zero for several hours during early Friday. Citrus fruit can suffer damage if air temperatures fall to -2°C (28°F) or below for around four hours or more. Agriculture is the Florida’s second largest industry behind tourism and as the state produces the majority of the citrus fruit grown in the US, cold weather in the state can be economically as well as meteorologically significant.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a frost has never been recorded in the Florida Keys, the island chain in the tropical south. Northern Florida has a more sub-tropical climate, but during winter can often be affected by polar continental air masses. The lowest temperature ever recorded in the state was -19°C (-2°F) in the northern city of Tallahassee on 13th February 1899, during a cold spell known as the ‘Great Blizzard’.

Snow is even more of a rare occurrence than frost, yet it has been known to fall even as far south as Miami. The Tampa Bay area in central Florida had ‘gulf-effect’ snow during the 1899 blizzard, similar to the lake-effect snow regularly seen in the Great Lakes. Jacksonville, in northeast Florida, had a white Christmas in 1989. The most widespread snowfall occurred in 1977, when snow fell over much of the state including on Miami Beach for only the second time in Florida’s recorded history. The snow fell as far south as Homestead, only around 25 miles north of the bridge from the Florida mainland to the Keys.

Florida is enjoying warmer weather this weekend, with temperatures back to the seasonal average and rising further at the start of next week. The pattern is not reflected across the UK however, with the cold weather here set to last throughout the coming week with further significant falls of snow likely in places.

Laura Gilchrist