Parts of Florida woke up to freezing temperatures on Tuesday, with some cities setting records for a Dec. 7 and others expecting to break records on Wednesday.
Fort Lauderdale at 40 degrees (42), and Vero Beach at 31 degrees (38), the National Weather Service reported.
For Wednesday, at least three cities are expected to set Dec. 8 records: Miami at 42, Orlando at 30 and Jacksonville at 21. Tallahassee is forecast to tie its record at 22 degrees.
On Monday night and into Tuesday, temperatures dipped to the edge of freezing for Florida's big orange growers, but it did not get cold enough to damage the crop, meteorologists and growers said Tuesday.
Overnight lows of 32 to 36 degrees were reported in Polk, Hendry, DeSoto and Highlands counties, the heart of the orange-growing region, the National Weather Service said.
Fruit damage occurs if temperatures are 28 degrees or lower for at least four hours, and early indications were it did not get that cold in the region.
"We did not sustain any damage to the trees or the crop," said grower John Arnold of the Showcase of Citrus in southern Lake County.
"As the winter progresses, it's one cold front after the next and we have to be prepared for the worst. This was like a dry run, so we can test our irrigation measures," added Arnold, who grows more than 50 varieties of citrus on 1,000 acres.
Freeze warnings sent orange juice futures soaring to their highest level in 3-1/2 years on Monday. Another freeze warning was expected through Wednesday morning before temperatures started to rise.
"Tonight will be about the same, maybe slightly warmer," said National Weather Service forecaster Tyler Fleming in Ruskin. "We're looking at low 30s."
Florida's $9 billion-a-year citrus industry produces about 70 percent of the U.S. crop. Most of the oranges processed for juice are grown in the central interior counties.
Temperatures briefly dipped to 28 degrees in the central east coast counties, whose crops are generally shipped as fresh fruit, but a growers' survey conducted by the Indian River Citrus League showed no damage.
"The fruit is just fine," said the league's executive director, Doug Bournique. "Nobody cut any slush or ice in any of the fruit."
Growers said the cold spell did them a favor by helping put the trees into their dormant state, which stops them from putting out new leaves that could be easily singed off by subsequent freezes as winter progresses.
However, Bournique said, "We don't want it any colder."
