Record Cold Stats for the Southeast
UPDATE: I have added some discussion of the Caribbean cold weather below. Also Frank Strait sends these readings: Grandfather Mountain: 13 F, Crossville, TN: 13, Muse, FL: 28 (one of 5 spots in South Florida at or below freezing).
If it seems unusually cold in the East today, it really is. In fact, in Charlotte North Carolina this time of year, the normal morning low is 37 F; this morning they were 13! In fact it was colder than any other December 7th in history, breaking a record set back in 1937. Mount Mitchell, NC fell to 3 below zero while Mount Leconte, Tennessee dipped to 1 below. Here's a map of temperatures this morning:
An AccuWeather.com Facebook Fan reported that her water pipes burst due to the cold in Wilkes County, North Carolina, where I grew up. Charlotte broke a record yesterday as well, part of 37 broken or tied low temperatures in the Southeast. One of those was Miami Beach, that fell to 50. Fort Lauderdale also set a record; much of the state is shivering in shelters and hoping crops don't get frozen.
There were over 100 record low maximums too, including places in Florida that never got out of the 50s. Banner Elk, North Carolina hadn't been below 28 degrees on that date for the last 93 years, but they only made it to 19 yesterday.
To my southern Fans: What kind of cold did you experience this week? Leave me a Comment below.
Even here in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map], we didn't make it out of the 20s yesterday, when we'd normally see 40.
Going way South, Joe Bastardi's Twitter account reports: "Dr. Roy Spencer, in Cancun, Mexico, reports record low of 54 this morning." I didn't see any record reports filed from elsewhere in the Caribbean, but it wouldn't surprise me. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands reported record low temperatures last week, as frigid as 56 F. (Not sure about the all-time record there but they hit 47 this February). An AccuWeather.com Facebook Fan Mahde S. was asking about the British Virgin Islands because they have also been feeling the cold since November 28th. According to the world records list, Tortola, BVI has never been below 60 F (Cancun has hit 45).
