SNOW IN FLORIDA !!! ??? - 12/21/2008

Dave Roberts Gives Take On First Day of Winter

Today’s solstice marks beginning of winter
Florida climate one of a kind
By GLENN MILLER • gmiller@news-press.com • December 21, 2008

No ice skating across Pine Island Sound between Cabbage Key and Useppa. No tobogganing down the Matanzas Pass Bridge. And certainly no sleigh rides barreling and careening along the paths at Lakes Park.

Today is the first day of winter in the northern hemisphere. Winter officially begins at 7:04 a.m. The event is called the winter solstice.

That’s easy to overlook or even forget in Florida, where winter usually creeps in as softly as kittens padding across an unused quilt. The average high temperature in Fort Myers today is 76. Winter?

This is winter in Florida, which has towns called Winter Haven, Winter Park, Winter Springs, Winter Gardens and Frostproof.

The coldest weather ever recorded in Southwest Florida was in December, either just before or after the winter solstice.

Meteorologist Dave Roberts, who has a Web site, www.daverobertsweather.com, said the lowest temperature ever recorded in Fort Myers was 24 on Dec. 29, 1894. The high temperature that day was only 42. The second-lowest temperature ever recorded was a 26 on Dec. 29, 1962.

Fort Myers had a December snowfall in 1989. It came on Dec. 23, 1989, two days after the winter solstice.

“If it snows here in Fort Myers I want my money back,” Roberts said.

It has snowed five times in Fort Myers in 150 years, according to Roberts. Until 1989, when it snowed at Homestead Air Force south of Miami, Fort Myers held the record for the southern-most snowfall in the continental U.S.

Roberts is ready for the 2008 winter solstice.

“Hosting a champagne brunch to commemorate the moment,” Roberts said.

He was joking.

But Roberts wasn’t joking about the five snowfalls in Fort Myers’ history.

“The winter is always full of surprises,” Roberts said. “We’ve never had snow stick to the ground in recorded history.”