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not when I was there in Jan and the ocean was still 74F. I've been there multiple times in winter and the water is always 73-75F. The gulf stream is potent.
Mean temp for Feb 2019 so far is ~73F. Last year was a record at 76.3F (higher than Honolulu at 75.4F), but there have been plenty of years with mean temperatures at or above 73F. Honolulu's Feb mean temp so far is 72.4F.
Mean temp for Feb 2019 so far is ~73F. Last year was a record at 76.3F (higher than Honolulu at 75.4F), but there have been plenty of years with mean temperatures at or above 73F. Honolulu's Feb mean temp so far is 72.4F.
In the 124 years of records this is the 9th hottest start to feb ever.
You know that the Gulf Coast of Mexico gets those fronts as well, don't you? Tampico (sea level at 23°N) and even Veracruz (sea level at 19°N) see the same cold incursions as Florida does. Heck, Veracruz has had winter days in recent years with high temps in the low teens Celcius, despite an average January high of 24.5°C or so
Like I said, I'm talking about climate genetics not temperatures. Cold fronts, by definition, are not a normal feature of tropical climates. Any place that gets cold fronts every six days on average during winter is not tropical genetically.
Mean temp for Feb 2019 so far is ~73F. Last year was a record at 76.3F (higher than Honolulu at 75.4F), but there have been plenty of years with mean temperatures at or above 73F. Honolulu's Feb mean temp so far is 72.4F.
Nothing comes close to last Feb for my area. Soon 90's will be the norm in FL during the winter within 30 years. Just the last 30 years alone have warmed up so much that the coconut line has moved 30 miles more to the north on the west coast of FL.
They don't have a large affect on vegetation, they're relative to the biases of the surveying organizations of a particular country - since each country tries to have it's own gardening zones, there shouldn't be international USDA hardiness maps.
Bizarre conclusions are drawn from hardiness/gardening zones if you're comparing them internationally.
If coastal south England is 10A, it should have native subtropical flora at least, right? And you should pretty much be able to grow coconut palms, right?
No, of course not.
Hardiness zones are used for gardening, and they're designed to be pretty over-conservative - and what's even more ridiculous is that they don't take into account yearly means, average highs, mean maximums, and record highs - only mean yearly minimums and record lows. They don't even take into account the intensity and length of summer, sunlight, precipitation...I genuinely have no idea why people use hardiness zone maps.
So you're getting your hardiness zone information from a tracking of the coldest possible temperature in a given year, usually felt during the shorter nighttime period.
This means that hardiness zones don't even represent native environment and flora - in the US, the maps essentially tell you to grow plants that are more temperate or cold-climate oriented than the ones native to your region. It's really weird. This is why you get forums like this:
...where people suggest Brownsville can't grow any tropical flora - despite it having native tropical flora and fauna - because of a record low from the 1800s - completely ignoring that Guangzhou's native flora is more temperate than Brownsville's because it gets consistently cooler average highs in the winter.
Hardiness zones are useful when used for a particular region which has a broadly similar climate. They're not intended to compare very different climates.
For example, a hardiness zone map would be useful for say knowing where in Florida a coconut palm is likely to grow longer term. It would be useful so say compare Miami with Tampa. It wouldn't be useful to compare Miami with somewhere with a totally different climate, like San Diego or Brighton.
Bermuda has the climate I wish Miami had. One of the best climates in the world imo. If you could somehow find a decently sized piece of land there it would be so easy to grow food... this thread makes me wish Bermuda was part of the U.S. lol but then it'd be even more crowded. I think Bermuda is more tropical simply due to the much higher record lows. Difference between average temps of the hottest and coldest month is similar to Miami but Miami is subject to more variability which is something I associate with temperate climates.
Miami is in the tropical/subtropical transition zone whereas Bermuda is in some kind of tropical/oceanic transition (oceanic in the sense of extremely narrow diurnal and seasonal temperature differences.
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