Hi
Before you get too excited lol. Pick out an area and look at record high and lows for dates in winter. About the only thing you can say for sure is that the weather is almost always abnormal. lol. Some of these records stand for decades particularly highs . Another interesting statistic is lowest and highest variation on a particular day earliest and latest frost as well as number of years without frost ..
I go by the "sooner or later " Sooner or later it's going to be too cold lo gary

Royalpaulm has some good stuff in what he has said here but I don't think we can say this is necessarily global warming. We can be in just a change and eventually go back to cold again. I am not saying the whole global thing is a farce but it seems people are swallowing it whole without chewing on it for a while to see if it is real.I also do not believe in evolution and that also was forced on people to believe it even when it was only a theory and now it seems it is taught as fact when its still a theory.All I am saying is they might be wrong.

Whether or not one believes in various aspects of the global warming narrative, there's something ironic about an article from a Florida paper saying "Don't tell Al Gore, but global warming might have a few hidden benefits." The worst global warming scenarios would put much of that state under water - only Delaware has a lower mean elevation (50Ft vs. Florida's 100Ft)

The elevation here is 18 ft and you can hit fresh water at about 4ft.

Very fascinating article, this is something I have often wondered about. It is obvious that palm species once seen only in south Florida are becoming quite common in the Orlando area as well as elsewhere. It just doesn't seem to get as cold, and what I especially notice is that on nights when a freeze is predicted the temp. will drop as predicted and then between 1-3 AM will just level off or even rise a bit. Maybe this is just temporary, but is for sure helped out by the urban heat island effect. In Orlando I have seen virtually no damage from this past winter on our relatively new tropical palms planted all over Orlando. In contrast, I was in Lakeland yesterday and a lot of the new developments have planted good sized royals, adonidias, arecas, foxtails etc. and these ALL had major foliage damage I would say averaging at 50%. I saw a relatively established areca clump(12 ft) that was totally defoliated and was only now growing a new leaf for each trunk. Clearly, Lakeland(which is farther south, but away from a major urban area) had it much colder than Orlando. Today I was in Merritt Island and some areas looked like south Florida there are so many tropical palms planted, whereas before you would just see them occasionally. Full size coconuts, royals, etc in the new developments(even some large very tropical veitchia, ptychosperma). I've always read that a tropical climate was defined as the coolest month having and average temperature above 64deg. If this is the case then Miami does,and has qualified as tropical. Vero Beach and Brandenton don't according to this definition. Maybe a line from Fort Myers to West Palm? So perhaps Miami is the new tropical and Orlando is the new subtropical, or maybe it is just a short term thing in the scheme of some multidecadal temperature cycle.

I fell in love with this palm recently on a trip to Ft Myers, but can't seem to find any here in Pensacola.
Does anyone perhaps know where I might find one that
I could have sent to me. I am a volunteer at the
USO Center in Pensacola and we are trying to create a
small interior garden/chapel for families of returning
soldiers. This is open to the sky but surrounded on
all four sides by the building so I think this palm
would do well. We have been successful so far in
have zoysia tenifolia grow as the lawn. Many thanks for
any help.

Even the Jacksonville area is seeing many Queen palms as well as some foxtails. I had some neighbors with the Aconidia Palms but they perished when it got down to 23 last winter. I have a small coconut palm in the back yard that I will protect when it gets cold and is doing fine. I just bought a larger coconut and aconida (6' tall to the frond) for $12 each from a home depot in Port St. Lucie as we were coming home from a cruise.

Global Warming cannot be discounted. However, I will say also that, cyclical climatic changes are normal, and it appears we are on a warming climatic change swing. There is historic evidence that even what would not be the mid atlantic areas of the US, at one time had a sub tropical / tropical climate, as has been evidenced by fossils of palm fronds, and sago cones found in the Virginias and Carolinas. However this shift that is currently occuring seems to have been brought on much much faster, in part, by mans influence on the planet. There is no doubt that man is having a profound effect on the global cycles. It can be seen even in polar arctic ice cap movements / depletions in just the last 40 years. From large scales to small, its noticable if one pays attention.

From my personal experience I can tell you that we just dont have winters here like we used to when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. Were single digits were not all THAT uncommon for highs, and lows were at times below zero, and there were many "blizzards" or heavy snow falls of over one foot each. The last great winter storm we had here in the Washington / Baltimore / Richmond area, was the blizzard of 96. 12 years ago. We have had a couple of "larger" snow falls since then, and a few brief cold snaps with highs in the upper teens to low 20s, but nothing like the cold from winters 20-30 years ago. Our Potomac River, and Chesapeake bay never freeze over anymore. I have now had plants that used to be annuals here, that are now becoming perennials, and survive the winters with no permanent damage. Things such as catnip, catmint, thyme...etc mostly survive the winters here just fine and do not have to be started anew from seed each year anymore. Fall starts later and later, and spring comes earlier and earlier each year now. Ostensibly, true "winter" climates and temps are now down to two months per year, and htat is January, and February, and even in those months it is no longer unheard of nor uncommon for it to get into the 60's / 70's here. Musa Basoo, and Red Abyssinian are commonplace here in my area now, and are left outside all year, die back, the corms mulched over, and they come back every year just as big. Seeing those in our area were unheard of just 20 years ago. The area I live in used to be a cold zone 7a, but I now often see it on zone maps listed as a zone 8a, where our urban heat island is, and I find that to be very believable.

Anyway, great article. Its great to see when society, or at least certain segments of it, start to actually see the results of warming climate shift. Its real, and its happening.