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Warming shelters for the homeless are open as Florida experiences its coldest weather this winter

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Tourists bundled up, warming shelters for the homeless opened and growers sprayed crops with water to create protective ice for their plants Friday as sunny Florida shivered through the coldest weather that parts of the state have experienced in more than three years.

The 19 degree Fahrenheit (minus 7.2 Celsius) temperature overnight at Tallahassee International Airport may have made the Sunshine State feel like Green Bay, Wisconsin, but it stopped short of the record 16 F (minus 8.9 C) almost a century ago, according to Mark Wool, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Tallahassee.

“It’s cold, but it’s not all that unusual to have cold weather this time of the year,” Wool said Friday.

There was even more un-Florida-like weather predicted for the weekend with the National Weather Service putting the chances for snow in the Panhandle early Sunday at between 20% and 30%. The snow was predicted to be less than an inch (2.5 centimeters) in the western Panhandle but not expected to impact travel because of a short duration and an expected quick rise in temperatures afterward, Wool said.

That would make it a far cry from the 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) of snow that fell on Pensacola almost exactly a year ago.

“The reasonably worst-case scenario is an inch since the window is only two or three hours,” Wool said of Sunday’s forecast. “But all of that will melt away when it warms up.”

Temperatures on Saturday were expected to warm up to more Sunshine State-like weather before dipping again Sunday and Monday. The thermometer was expected to be a cool-for-Miami mid-50s F (12.7 C) during Monday night’s college football championship game between Indiana and Miami at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

The central part of Florida on Friday experienced some of the coldest weather it has seen in more than three years as lows dipped to the mid-20s F (minus 3.8 C), according to the National Weather Service.

In the theme park hub of Orlando, where the thermometer fell to right at freezing overnight, water parks such as Typhoon Lagoon at Walt Disney World were closed Friday. The water park also planned to be closed at the beginning of next week because of the predicted frigid weather, Disney said in an email.

In Plant City, which bills itself as the winter strawberry capital of the world, growers used sprinklers to spray strawberry plants and ornamental plants with water that formed a protective ice as the overnight temperature went as low as 28 F (minus 2.2 C). The ice kept the plants’ temperatures from going below freezing. Plant City is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Tampa.

In northeast Florida, potato growers covered their crops with extra soil to protect against the freezing weather.

There were no widespread problems reported with any crops in Florida, said Christina Morton, director of communications for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, a growers’ trade association.

“Florida is well into its winter season for fruit and vegetables, so the timing for this cold snap was not ideal,” Morton said in an email. “The good news is things warmed up quickly this morning, and despite the wintry conditions, harvesting continued across much of the state today.”

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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social

Grandfather recovering from surgery after bison attack at Yellowstone sent him flying

By WTOP Staff
(CNN) — What started as a yearly trip for a grandfather and his grandson turned into a visit to a Montana hospital after a bison attack at Yellowstone National Park.Carl McDaniel, 65, was hospitalized with a broken femur after a bison charged and tossed him into the air Friday evening at the park’s Bridge Bay Campground, according to McDaniel and the National Park Service.He was visiting the park with his 13-year-old grandson when they decided to take a walk after dinner.Along the way, they encountered a large bison that appeared to be rolling around in the dust and was not bothering anyone, McDaniel told CNN.“We were about a hundred yards away,” McDaniel said. “He was not aggressive; he was not having problems and we took some pictures and decided to walk on.”McDaniel and his grandson snapped a quick photo and continued with their walk, video of the encounter shows. At the same time, a truck drove by, and the driver laid on his horn in what appeared to be an attempt to get the bison to move, McDaniel said. There is no audio on the video.The bison then appeared to become agitated and began running toward the pair.“There was little time to decide what to do. At that point, he was within 100 yards; he could be to us in seconds, so I told my grandson to run in one direction and I went the other to try and draw him away,” McDaniel said.The animal then pushed McDaniel with the top of its head, sending him flying into the air before he hit the ground, the grandfather said.“When I was on the ground immobile, unable to move, he was right on top of me. He could have stomped on me, he could have gored me, he could have done almost anything to take my life, and he did not do so,” McDaniel said.After McDaniel hit the ground, photographer Mike MacLeod, who captured the encounter on video, had to step in, he told Cowboy State Daily.“I was really afraid he was going to gore the guy on the ground, so I stopped videotaping and ran at the bison, yelled loud, and was trying to be as big and intimidating as possible,” MacLeod said.After the bison took off, people rushed over to McDaniel, who was in a lot of pain, MacLeod told Cowboy State Daily. Yellowstone EMS arrived soon after, he said.“Park emergency medical personnel responded and transported him to a nearby hospital,” the National Park Service said in confirming the incident in a statement to CNN.This is the second bison attack at Yellowstone this year. A 12-year-old was injured near Mud Volcano on June 26, according to the agency.After Friday’s attack, “all the people that were there were amazing; they were all positive, they were trying to help as best they could,” McDaniel said. A nurse started tending to his leg, while another bystander held his head.He was then transferred to a hospital in Bozeman, a two-hour journey during which he was in intense pain. He said he was grateful for the paramedic who helped him along the way.McDaniel broke his femur, the body’s strongest bone, in four places near his hip and suffered several bruises. He had surgery Sunday and could stand by Monday.“I will be doing physical therapy for the next few days to get to walk, but it was not as catastrophic as it could have been,” McDaniel said.The National Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 yards away from bison at all times and to never approach the animals. “If the bison follows you, spray bear spray as you are moving away, and seek cover behind nearby trees or cars,” the agency said.Correction: An earlier version of this story understated how far visitors should stay away from bison. The National Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 yards from them.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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