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I think for Coconut palms, you need to consider soil temperature as well. If soil temperature drops to around 60 or below, it stresses the trees and begins to kill them off.
This is why a cold snap in Miami usually just does leaf damage... Yes, the 40s are brutal on them but because a typical severe cold snap here lasts 2-4 days, usually the soil temperature stays above 60 and they don't begin to die at the root.
There are many factors in soil temperature, but one is the daily mean of the place. In Miami, the daily mean is 68.15 degrees during the coldest month. In Cocoa Beach, it's 61 degrees. Already at the threshold where the roots of these trees begin to die. So when a cold snap does occur, it can very much drop the soil temperature a bit below 61 degrees.
Places like Santa Monica, in California almost never see freezes and their absolute lows are actually very similar to Miami. Some years the lowest temperature they see is a few degrees warmer than Miami, and other times Miami is only a few degrees warmer. But they can't grow coconut palm trees, why? Their daily mean is 57.5 degrees, the soil is already too cold on a average day to support them.
It is not one day of 59F soil temps, it has to be weeks of temps like that before trouble starts. And I check soil temps from time to time on SPI. And they really do stay above 60F the majority of the time. I don't think that is the issue. The issue is incredible cold that comes every so many decades that is just too much for a coco palm.
I think for Coconut palms, you need to consider soil temperature as well. If soil temperature drops to around 60 or below, it stresses the trees and begins to kill them off.
This is why a cold snap in Miami usually just does leaf damage... Yes, the 40s are brutal on them but because a typical severe cold snap here lasts 2-4 days, usually the soil temperature stays above 60 and they don't begin to die at the root.
There are many factors in soil temperature, but one is the daily mean of the place. In Miami, the daily mean is 68.15 degrees during the coldest month. In Cocoa Beach, it's 61 degrees. Already at the threshold where the roots of these trees begin to die. So when a cold snap does occur, it can very much drop the soil temperature a bit below 61 degrees.
Places like Santa Monica, in California almost never see freezes and their absolute lows are actually very similar to Miami. Some years the lowest temperature they see is a few degrees warmer than Miami, and other times Miami is only a few degrees warmer. But they can't grow coconut palm trees, why? Their daily mean is 57.5 degrees, the soil is already too cold on a average day to support them.
And wet in a normal CA winter, and that causes the rot. SPI is more dry in winter I think, and so is Miami.
And wet in a normal CA winter, and that causes the rot. SPI is more dry in winter I think, and so is Miami.
I don't see why rain has anything to do with it, though rain combined with cold soil conditions may hasten the demise. I think though that in Santa Monica, most of the rain is "cold" and it serves to cool down the soil temperature faster.
Coconuts HATE wet conditions in cool weather. Mine did fine near a window during the winter, it was actually still growing, but it began dying shortly after I put it out in the rain for some water. I should've left it alone, but oh well.
Cocoa Beach and Brownsville are nothing like Santa Monica. Both are tropical for 8-9 months of the year with winter high temperatures around 70F. Santa Monica is an oceanic climate that never gets any proper tropical warmth.
What is interesting about Galveston is that the water inshore looks bad, but out past the waves the water looks pretty decent. You can see that in these two videos.
These two are from Galveston, TX about 300 miles further north along the coast.
That is because there is a near shore current that runs along the Texas coast from the Eastern Gulf. When unchecked human interference disturbed the natural flow of the Mississippi, the sediment from that river was able to get into the Gulf by large volumes, and flow through this near-shore current, making the near-shore water on Galveston murky.
Brownsville for the coolish winters. Its rainfall pattern looks like an hybrid between tropical savanna (dry winters, increasing rainfall in spring) and (at least French) mediterranean (rather dry summers, rainfall peak in autumn).
Brownsville's rainfall pattern (at least totals wise) is like the classic tropical-savanna type, but with a pronounced late-summer bias (September): the rainfall is over 2 inches from May-October, but drops under that amount Nov-April. While September is indeed an autumn month, at Brownsville's latitude, it simply is an extension of summer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rozenn
I'm surprised that the record highs aren't higher. I would have guessed it had dry and scorching heat bursts from inland from time to time.
Not only that, Brownsville averages only 1 day of 100F+ temps, which is the same as many SE US coastal cities that see much more rainfall annually. Even some of these SE US cities, like Savannah, average higher amounts of 100F days, which is strange: https://i.imgur.com/pw0Ytgx.png https://i.imgur.com/yT3a4zV.png
Miami is basically Brownsville but with the benefit of the Gulf Stream. Better winters, better summers. Humidity is the same, but Brownsville rains considerably less in the summer. That might be the only upside compared to Miami.
Brownsville has a continental climate, whereas Miami doesn't.
Brownsville doesn't have a continental climate. It has a humid subtropical climate which is pretty close to being tropical. A continental climate would be the Upper Midwest cities like Chicago or the East Coast north of New York City. A continental climate is somewhere where the mean temperature in the coldest month is below 32F. Brownsville isn't even close to that.
LOL on how you think that Brownsville, Corpus Christi in particular are "nowhere near tropical zone". You are so defensive about this so called tropical zone of S. Florida, that it clouds your judgement to a certain extent.
The closest tropical city to Brownsville is Tampico, which is 321 miles away, 474 from Corpus Christi. Almost all of the subtropical cities in Florida are closer to the tropical cities in Florida than that. So in that sense he is absolutely correct. The tropical line in Florida starts at Stuart on the East Coast and Fort Myers on the West Coast. If you go to the same parallel in Texas, you're over 400 miles from the nearest tropical city.
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