silversand wrote:
4x4 Dodger wrote:
I am sorry but I don't know what panhandle you are referring to but here are the average temperatures for Pensacola, Fla:
....forget about "averages"; in reality, we have entered a climate period where averages are really meaningless at the human time scale. Hard working people who have saved all their lives, and have perhaps only 10 or 15 years of healthful travel time left within which to snowbird, want to know that 3 or 4 out of 10 years of snowbirding in Florida (or, Rio Grand Valley, or southern Arizona) will not be spent shivering in their RVs for a month or two (or forbid, 3 or 4 months). Snowbirders want a guarantee that when they spend $10,000 of their hard-earned money for 4 months "down south" in Florida, they get 98% certainty of temperatures above say, 50F during evenings, and 68F during daytime (my assumption; right or wrong). If you were camping anywhere in the "Panhandle" over that past 4 winters, you would have experiences about 66%% of your winter (~3.2 months) with temperatures in the low to mid 30s F at night (and numerous in the 20s F), and low 40s to mid 50s F during the day. Compounding this terrible statistic, you would have been pummeled by high humidity winds making the real-feel even colder "feeling" than that.
Follow the advice of the several Florida residents (on this Forum), and take their "...snowbird south of Orlando/Tampa..." very, very seriously.
Studying the Office of Florida Climate Center, Florida has experience NUMEROUS arctic-like periods; on a quick search, Tallahassee to Avon Park have had temperatures from -2F (!!) to a balmy 20F about every 12 to 15 years since 1894; Fort Myers has had similar at the same temporal intervals (27F to 33F).
Although many people head south to escape the cold in the winter, it isn't always warmer in Florida. When an intense low pressure system is followed by a strong high pressure system, particularly powerful invasions of cold air may occur in Florida. These cold air outbreaks can produce below-freezing temperatures and are usually accompanied by strong winds that can produce bitterly cold wind chills. (Florida Climate Center)
Contrary to popular belief, it does snow in Florida. The first documented account of snow in Florida was reported in 1774. During the Great Arctic Outbreak, which was responsible for one of the biggest widespread snow events in the state, snow measured up to 3 inches deep in numerous Panhandle communities (Florida Climate Center)
...there have been more than 80 months in which at least a trace of snow has been reported somewhere in the state. (Florida Climate Center)
2010: A mix of snow and sleet was reported in Jacksonville, with a freezing fog event around midnight. Tallahassee, Gainesville, and other locations in the northern peninsula reported flurries during the day.
When I say "...very, very cold in the Panhandle...", I am referring to from the perspective of Florida and Floridians, not for Canadian standards. For Canadians, we don't want even a chance of 30s or 40s F during snowbirding season (unless, like us, we have a comfortable well heated condo to take shelter in for days or weeks at a time).
First I am not making any assumptions about what the OP wanted as you did. But I do think they deserve FACTS. And despite what you may think Averages are important and they are reality. In fact weather wise they probably give a more accurate picture of what you can expect at any given time than any other mathematical way of expressing the same data. (This is why it is so often expressed this way)
The fact that Florida has experienced cold periods pass through every 12 to 15 years is hardly reason enough to describe the panhandle as "very very cold" the weather in th panhandle is TEMPERATE, Minot is very very cold.
Also when the weather does get a bit chilly in Florida it tends to last for a day or two and the good stuff returns.
I think it's unfair to the Orig. poster asking a question to skew the facts so outlandishly and leave the impression that you did. While you live in Montreal I have lived on the Gulf Coast both at Mobile and at Biloxi, all on the same latitude as Pensacola. I think I can speak from a position of some reasonable experience.
