[jetdoc3037]

Where does South Fla start? And are all area's in SW Fla simply referred to a SW Florida, or are some clumped at South Fla? I ask because someone was asking me.

Oh and riddle me this, a long time resident of Ft. Lauderdale was telling me to get below Lake Okeechobee if I wanted to be removed from any sort of cold weather in winter. I always thought below Orlando and you were ok to avoid the winter cold. Perhaps its your own perspective of what is cold I'm sure.

[DanielAvery]

It's kind of silly, but you have your pick of probably a dozen "Where does South Florida begin?" argument threads on here. You could read them all and still be no closer to a definitive answer. Perhaps it's best to adopt that old definition of pornography, which is "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

[cfbs2691]

Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade Counties are considered "South Florida".

[StarfishKey]

All counties in FL can freeze at least once a year except Monroe County. So yeah, it depends on your definition of cold. Even Monroe County is affected by the winter, with lowest recorded temps ever reaching 35 degree F in Key Largo, and 42 degrees F in Key West.

The funny thing is, when I lived in places that snowed most of the year, it was common for the temps to hit zero at least one week every year, so by comparison 26 degrees felt warm! I often wore shorts at 45 degrees. In SFL (my opinion is, anything below the center latitudinal line of the state, as in the bottom half - it's the only scientifically accurate answer), temperatures remain so humid and so consistently hot that even a drop to 70 degrees feels painfully cold by comparison. Reaching the mid 50s here literally feels like I'm dying. My body slows down so much that I can't even move it, and no matter how many layers I wrap myself in I just can't get warm. It's like I've become a cold-blooded reptile, and I totally sympathize with all the iguanas that reach that point and just fall off the tops of trees and just lay there frozen on the sidewalk until the sun heats up again! So oddly enough, and I think this is true for many people here who have lived elsewhere, cold feels a lot less cold and unpleasant in cold locations, and in SFL once you've been here for 2 months or more, your tolerance is totally gone and even though it is way less cold, it feels a million times worse than it ever did when there were feet of snow on the ground!

[jambo101]

Originally Posted by jetdoc3037

Where does South Fla start? And are all area's in SW Fla simply referred to a SW Florida, or are some clumped at South Fla? I ask because someone was asking me.

Oh and riddle me this, a long time resident of Ft. Lauderdale was telling me to get below Lake Okeechobee if I wanted to be removed from any sort of cold weather in winter. I always thought below Orlando and you were ok to avoid the winter cold. Perhaps its your own perspective of what is cold I'm sure.

Assuming this question is motivated by weather i think anywhere in Florida you wont be shoveling snow,Floridas winters are very mild there is no line where you cross into southern Florida it basically gets a little warmer the further south you go, obviously winter in Jacksonville is going to be somewhat cooler than winter in Keywest.

[OptimusPrime69]

South Florida begins in Palm Beach County and ends in Key West.
SW Florida is generally Naples up through Ft. Myers/Cape Coral

All areas of south FL exprience cool to cold weather every winter. One can never truly escape any cold snaps. I remember this past Feb 2015... there were 2 nights in Miami it went down to 38 degrees. On those same days it was warmer in London, England in Feb than Miami.

[aridon]

The amount of cold weather diminishes RAPIDLY south of Orlando. Just between Port St Lucie and slightly north, say Sebastian can be a huge temperature difference of 15 degrees because the fronts tend to stall between there and Northern FL.

The fronts tend to come in for 2 weeks of "cold" weather. Generally low 40's, occasional 30's at night with 60's during the day occasional 50's. Usually only for a day or two a year on the really cold stuff and around 2 weeks or so a year for the seasonable cold stuff.

If you are up in Orlando area you'll see much more of both than you would in S FL.

[jetdoc3037]

Great responses and some pretty funny. One thing I didn't know, OP69, is that SWF doesn't encompass from Tampa down.

All I know is even 38 degrees every now and then as it was in Miami is still way better than Dec/Jan/Feb and parts of March with it being way colder than 38 pretty much every single day...throw in the snow and cloudy gray days, day after day... I will take it.

I will say I love the fall and spring up here in Md, and I love the heat of summer, but winters have just become too much to deal with.

[JayGatsby]

It is very debatable what exactly counts as South Florida. I'd probably draw the boundaries at St. Lucie county on the east coast and Manatee county on the west coast, but that is pretty generous. Coastal areas in those counties and south will freeze about once in a decade at most.

[EscAlaMike]

Although "South Florida" is not well-defined, Central Florida pretty well is. So I guess you could say South Florida begins where Central Florida ends. That would be everything south of Hillsborough, Polk, Osceola, and Brevard counties.

There is a caveat though, because Florida's "Heartland", which consists of the inland counties of South Florida stand alone as a distinctive region, both in culture (rural), and economically (more agricultural and not as tourist-oriented).