Once upon a time, a teacher told us that it had snowed in every state except Florida.
However, I watch the Weather Channel sometimes, and they seem to salivate over unusual weather phenomena. I can remember a couple of times it snowing in Northern Florida, and even once in the Orlando area (although it may have been sleet).
With that, I was wondering if it had snowed everywhere, including South Florida.
I know it has snowed in San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Houston, and New Orleans, but have never heard of it snowing in Miami.
Florida has definitely had frost. I don’t know if it snowed at that time, though.
Part of the reason Florida is unique in this regard is that most of the hot states have high mountains, which are good for snow even if the weather in the populated areas is generally warm. Florida is very, very flat.
I know it has snowed as far south as Tampa/Sarasota but AFAIK it has never snowed in Miami/The Keys area.
Are we limited to the modern era?
Yeah, I am not wondering about the ice age or anything.
They had snow in Miami in the mid-late 70’s. I remember it was on the cover of Time. First occurance that far south in recorded history.
Its snowed in Mexico a few years back, too.
Well, Mexico does have mountains, so that’s not too surprising.
here’s a link regarding snow in Miami. Sorry it doesn’t have a lot more info.
This is just a guess, but I’d say the answer is probably yes it’s snowed in every state but not in all locations in every state. I lived in Tucson for several years and saw snowing falling on the desert there a couple of times, but Tucson is at a 3000ft elevation. Someplace like Death Valley that combines a low latitude, low elevation, and low precipitation would be an unlikely candidate for snow.
A quick google search just showed me that Death Valley was a very bad example, at least for the mountains there, but I’ll stick with my point that there must be areas that are near sea-level,hot, and dry, so have never gotten snow.
Key West has never reported frost, ice sleet, or snow, according to this:
http://www.key-west.com/weather.htm
January 9, 1977 snow fell in Miami.
http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/local/columnists/fleischman/digdocs/028024.htm
Um, yeah. I knew that. I am talking away from the mountains somewhere near the coast. I guess I should have been more specific.
Juarez gets about four inches of snow a year, if the average cumulative annual snowfall for Las Cruces, New Mexico is any indication.
It falls below freezing at night in the Chihuahuan Desert frequently during the winter. Combine a sub-freezing temperature with a bit of rain, and volia! – snow in Mexico.
Snow falls in Hawaii all the time (a couple of tall mountains), so I think we can establish that it has snowed in all 50 states, just not the lower 48 (I’ve heard a rumor of snow in Alaska, but have not been able to confirm).
To expand it further, it has never snowed in Puerto Rico (that I can find note of) but there has been snow in Puerto Rico.
As others have pointed out here, it snowed in the Tampa Bay area in the late 1970s, then again about 10 years ago. There was a nasty cold front covering at least the eastern third of the country. We lived in Cincinnati at the time and were so happy to be going down to Florida for Christmas. It was an ambient -20 F in Cincinnati, my eyeballs were freezing as we loaded the car. Unfortunately it was only 10 F in Tampa when we arrived. The homes there are not built for that kind of weather, and frankly, neither are the people, so there were rolling brownouts to save the power grid.
This reminds me of one of my favorite old Doonesbury cartoons, where Uncle Duke is the governor of American Samoa. Things have been going badly, and Duke says “at least it can’t get any worse”. Just then snow begins to fall. He asks, “Is that snow?”, and his assistant replies, “Pay it no mind sir, it never sticks”
In Tampa there was no accumulation to speak of, just some frosty spots on the grass. But I would guess that farther north they may have got a tiny bit of accumulation from time to time.
In the 16 years I’ve lived in Charleston,SC, it usually has snowed at least a trace every year, and it had one 16-inch snowfall. They told me that they had a bigger snowfall before I moved here, in 1978, IIRC. The difference is that it doesn’t stay around long.