Florida Freezes Over: A Look Back to the End of January

5 Feb 2022, 2:00 am

Temperatures froze over in Florida during the last weekend of January. Temperatures were below freezing all the way into South Florida. Iguanas were freezing as far south as Hollywood, Florida! Yikes!

🚨Falling 🦎Iguana🦎 Alert! 🚨

Temperatures in #Florida dropped to the 30's which means some reptiles froze and fell out of trees on Monday morning.

Don't worry, Fred (that's what the woman who found him named him) will thaw out once temperatures warm up. #FLwx pic.twitter.com/dsZH1uWTPw

— WeatherNation (@WeatherNation) January 24, 2022

Record Temps

It seems like 2022 was off to a cold start for the Sunshine State. Comparing this cold snap to years in the past, it definitely makes the books. NWS Miami tweeted that nearly ALL reporting stations in their region reached their lowest since January 2020.

For every reporting station in Miami-Dade/Broward except Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), low temps on January 30th were the lowest since January 2020. FXE's low of 40F was 1 degree higher than the 39F recorded on 2/4/2021. 2/5

— NWS Miami (@NWSMiami) February 2, 2022

January 30th, Punta Gorda, Fort Myers and Vero Beach all tied their coldest morning lows.

Check out some of the temperatures from that same morning.

In SW Florida and areas around Lake Okeechobee, there were temperatures that reached the lowest since February of 2015. Ortona in Glades County hit 28 degrees, the lowest since January of 2018. Palmdale reached 25 degrees, this made it the coldest since December of 2010! Immokalee, reaching 28 degrees, and and Belle Glade, reaching right at freezing, were coldest since January of 2012.

When temperatures get below a certain point in Florida, Iguanas literally start falling from the trees. For more on why that happens we turn to the experts:

Tune in to your East Region Forecast at :10 past the hour and the Central Region Forecast at :30 past the hour on WeatherNation for more details.

About the author

Taban Sharifi

Taban Sharifi grew up in Southern California between Los Angeles and San Diego. She is a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (CBM) with the American Meteorological Society (AMS). She has a B.S. in Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Environmental Sciences with a minor in Environmental Systems and Society from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Go Bruins! While in school, Taban was a meteorology... Load More intern with NBC LA. There she helped forecast daily weather for the greater Los Angeles region and created a playbook to deploy weather sensors for NBC owned-and-operated stations across the country. Her first on-air job took her to San Angelo, Texas, where she was a morning meteorologist and co-anchor. Working in West Texas gave her knowledge and experience covering severe storms. From there, she moved to Palm Springs, California. People think forecasting in California is sunshine all the time, but with temperatures in the 120’s, wildfires, damaging winds, floodings, and earthquakes, the forecasting kept her very busy! She also worked there as a general assignment reporter and told community stories. Taban is excited for the challenge and opportunity to forecast nationally with WeatherNation. She also looks forward to exploring all that Colorado has to offer!