Every year, March seems to be a busy month for me. I was lucky enough to host a meeting for the climatologists in the Southeast U.S in Key West at the beginning of the month. I promised them nice warm weather... what we got was nice cool weather. Unseasonably cool weather. During our 3-day conference in the Keys, Key West tied its low maximum temperature record on the 7th of 65˚F that was set back in 1966. The average highs for Key West should have been around the mid 70's. That was still warmer than the temperatures that everyone else had been experiencing but a bit chilly for me. As March continued, poor Punxsutawney Phil had a bounty put on his head and was even looking at a lawsuit against his busted forecast of an early spring.  

If you thought March was colder than this past winter; you were correct! All of the major reporting stations in the state had monthly average temperatures that ranged between 3.5˚F and 6˚F below normal and were colder than December, January and February combined. This March was also a complete flip-flop from last March, when temperatures were 3˚F to 8˚F above normal.

This old idiom has been spoken for generations, though for the last few years, March has come in like a lamb and gone out like a lion.  

From March 23rd to 25th, 103 of the 129 severe weather reports were recorded. A low pressure system in Louisiana set up an interesting weather event as a warm front lifted through the Panhandle on the 23rd and 24th, spawning one round of severe weather. Then, a second round of severe weather hit the state as the cold front pushed through on the 24th and 25th. On the morning of the 23rd, numerous hail reports came in from locations along the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend, including Panama City Beach, Wewahitcha, Altha, Chattahoochee, and Wakulla Springs. Hail sizes ranged from dime (0.75") to quarter (1.00") at these locations. One particularly strong thunderstorm moved east along and parallel to I-10 from Tallahassee toward Jacksonville and triggered multiple reports of hail and storm damage. An Emergency Manager in Bradford County received reports of baseball-sized hail (2.75") near Lawtey, FL. In addition to the hail and winds, an observer in Lake City reported that over 2.00" of rain had fallen in a 30-minute time period as this storm moved through the area. The same severe thunderstorm caused heavy rains, storm damage and more hail reports as it moved into the town of St. Augustine. Later on the 23rd, lightning caused a house fire in Milton, and storm total rainfall amounts over 2.50" were reported by observers in and around Jacksonville. The 24th saw more reports of storm damage and high winds across much of the Panhandle, Big Bend and northern peninsula of the state. A measured wind gust of 75 mph was taken from the Orlando International Airport, and a gust of 86 mph was measured in the Lake Buena Vista area. Dime to quarter sized hail was reported across the central part of the state from Tampa to Orlando to Titusville. Trees were uprooted and numerous homes sustained damage as the cold front pushed through the area.