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To answer your question, Chester, would be YES. Although fairly infrequent, usually high temps being held below 50 aren't because of a frosty night, but because of an artic airmass and the overriding gulf moisture producing drizzle and fog/low cloud conditions keeping it in the 40s.
The times temps have been held below 50 with freezes at night? December 1989, 1983 come to mind. The coldest weather ever in most of S. Texas during these times. In 1899 there was also an extreme freeze over this part of the state too. Here are some actual numbers from the NWS Brownsville website for the top 10 coldest high temps ever recorded:
Chester, I do not have the figures for S. Padre Island. I can pull them up for Port Isabel, which is fairly close nearby, but is an inland location (not the Island), so the figures are somewhat different, as the Gulf will hold the nighttime temps up on the Island.
I have no doubt there was damage to much of the Citrus crop down here at the time. I do not have any $$$ figures, but I am sure the losses were high.
It froze as far south as Tampico, Mexico in 1989, which is IN the tropics and right by the Gulf. Not sure about the coconut damage, but the area is littered with them. There's nothing to stop an arctic blast from hitting S. Texas or Northern Mexico, thus our record lows are way below average for our latitude.
I personally find it amazing that subfreezing highs have happened so far south, albeit very fleeting - a day or two every few decades. Nowhere else in the world at such a latitude (25-30 degrees) do I think this happens.
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