OCALA - Twice the temperature dipped to freezing at the Ocala International Airport early Wednesday before it began making a gradual climb to the mid-60s.GORE TO CLOSE FOR OBAMA IN FLORIDA...
Temperatures in the Ocala area dipped into the mid-30s overnight.Though there was a reading of freezing or below throughout northwest Marion County, Wednesday morning's official low temperature was 33 degrees. It was a record for Oct. 29 and the second lowest temperature ever recorded in October since 1850. Ocala's official weather site is at the city water treatment plant on Southeast 24th Street.
Until Wednesday, Oct. 29's record temperature was 37 in 1943 and a close second was 38 degrees in 1957. "It did hit 32 degrees in October 1989," said Mike McAllister, a National Weather Service meteorologist who spent Wednesday morning searching databases to gather official October weather records for Ocala.
The low temperature at unofficial sites owned by private citizens - who then make the readings public on weather Web sites, such as Weather Underground - ranged from 29 degrees in Shady, an area southeast of Ocala, to 36 degrees in southern Marion.
In almost every area of the county at daybreak Wednesday, frost - which came six weeks early - glistened on grass and rooftops. The average first frost in Marion County is Dec. 10, officials said. An early frost can be good in some situations and bad in others.
David Holmes, Marion County's extension agent, said Wednesday that typically an early freeze is good news for hay producers. That's because a freeze often kills harmful pests, mainly the dreaded armyworm, which often eats the grass that farmers turn into hay. An early freeze helps reduce the armyworm, which are larvae that turn into caterpillars that move in groups to find food and cause damage to grass along the way.
Due to dry conditions, the armyworm was already not expected to present a big problem to hay producers.
Marion County has not seen much rain since Hurricane Fay in August. Since Aug. 22, there has been only 4 inches of rain, half the normal average. "Because of the drought, we have not seen the armyworm like we have in the past," Holmes said.
Holmes said owners of plant nurseries covered plants overnight and that he didn't expect any crops to have been damaged by the frosty weather. He said time will tell what kind of damage may have been done to private home gardens. He said some crops, such as green beans and tomatoes, likely would not have survived if they were not covered. Meanwhile, local and state officials said the early frost could mean an early start to the wildfire season.
Bart Walker, a Marion County Fire Rescue division chief, said the frost was not enough to create a threat in the thick underbrush common on the forest floors. "We may see more grass fires," said Walker, adding that grass fires usually do not typically begin until December after the first frost.
Florida Division of Forestry's Gary Beauchamp, supervisor of the Waccasassa District, which includes Marion and Alachua counties, agreed. However, he said if the region begins getting rain that the grass could begin to grow again, especially if temperatures climb back to average or above average. "It could green back up," he said.
For now, Beauchamp said, it will be a wait-and-see game. "It all depends on what happens in the next two to three weeks," he said.
Today the high temperature is expected to climb to 70 degrees. For Friday through the weekend, the lows are expected to be in the mid-50s and the highs in the mid-70s, the National Weather Service predicts.