TAMPA, Fla. — The blast of frigid air that swept across the United States over the past week officially has brought the coldest Christmas to the Tampa Bay area in more than 30 years.
The National Weather Service recorded a low temperature of 31 degrees at Tampa International Airport. That puts Sunday tied with 1966 for the fourth coldest Christmas in the Tampa area since the records began being tracked in 1890.
Tampa’s coldest Christmas came in 1983 when the temperature dropped to 20. Sunday is the coldest Christmas in the city since it was 26 in 1989.
Sunday is the first time temperatures have dropped below freezing in Tampa on consecutive days for the first time since January 2010. Hillsborough County is no longer under a freeze warning as of late Sunday morning.
Hillsborough County opened eight cold weather shelters during Christmas weekend including at the Hyde Park United Methodist Church near downtown Tampa. The Rev. Vicki Walker said 80 people stayed in the church’s shelter overnight on Christmas Eve and they fed breakfast to 120 on Christmas morning.
Shelters will be open Sunday night in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties.
Pinellas County was never given a freeze watch or warning, but St. Petersburg did set a record for the third coldest Christmas in the city with a low temperature recorded at 35 degrees.
The National Weather Service, which began keeping track of temperature records in St. Petersburg in 1914, lists a 24-degree day in 1983 as the city’s coldest, and 30 in 1989 as the second coldest.
Temperatures are expected to increase this week back toward more typical Florida weather. By Thursday, high temperatures in the Tampa Bay area should return into the 70s, per the National Weather Service’s forecast.
———
