Reply #43: I expect a lot of citrus trees will be killed

[csziggy]

It will likely be the biggest die off since the 1989 freeze. We had to replace about a third of our trees after that one and it did not last as long as this one already has, though the lowest temperatures are not as low, the total cold hours add up to more damage. And since citrus has not been making a lot of money, many growers will just sell their groves to developers or let them sit without maintaining them until land prices go back up. After the 1989 freeze a lot of groves around Orlando got sold and turned into housing developments. Even with government help, it was just too expensive to replant trees and wait twenty years for them to get back to full production - and take a chance on another freeze!

What is odd is that the hard freeze line has been moving south for over a hundred years. There used to be groves around Jacksonville. By World War II those were pretty much gone except for a few small stands of citrus for family use. When I was a kid, along the Florida Turnpike near Orlando was lined with healthy groves. Now most of those are gone and most of the trees left have been abandoned to survive on their own. Now groves south of the line from Tampa to Yeehaw Junction are losing ground.

That is not to say global climate change is not to blame - warmer overall temperatures make for more energetic systems, even in the winter. And those more energetic systems can move much colder air farther south!