Here on Sanibel Island, we’ve had our fare share of “winter weather” already this year. But, while it’s been cold on island, with temperatures hanging in the low 60’s and even dipping down into the 40’s at night, we realize this is nothing compared to other states and even northern parts of Florida!
At least it’s not snowing!
Did you hear that it snowed in parts of northern Florida last week!? Temperatures in Jacksonville and Tallahassee were in the 30’s during the coldest days of the weather front that brought snow to many parts of the eastern U.S.
While things are warming back up this week, we thought this serves as a good reminder to those who are considering multiple areas of Florida as their future winter home. After all, who wants to leave below freezing weather up north just to experience near freezing weather at their winter home in Florida?
Average Temp Comparisons
To give you a good comparison of the areas, we researched the average high and low winter temperatures here in Sanibel vs Clearwater and St. Augustine.
Well actually, the data was taken from Page Field in Fort Myers, but that is relatively the same as Sanibel in this case. As you can see below, the average high’s and low’s show a significant difference between the three areas.
The following data was taken from Weather Underground and includes an average for the months of January and February of each year from 2010 – 2017.
Water temperatures vary as well!
We knew the air temperatures differed here in Southwest Florida compared to the more northern Florida cities, but we were curious to see if there was a difference in water temperature as well. So, we researched the average water temperatures in January for each of the same three cities in Florida. The averages below are taken from seatemperature.org and include several years of recorded data for the month of January.
Average Water Temperatures in January
Sanibel Island: 65.3℉
Clearwater: 63.9℉
St. Augustine: 64.2℉
Surprisingly, St. Augustine on the Atlantic Coast averaged warmer temperatures than Clearwater, which is further south on the Gulf Coast. Water temperatures on Sanibel were about two-degrees warmer than Clearwater, which doesn’t seem significant but is certainly noticed when swimming in the water!
Of course weather and water temperatures shouldn’t be your one and only deciding factor when selecting the perfect Florida community for you! But we hope this information has been insightful for those who might have assumed all Florida weather is the same year-round.
As always, if you have any questions about Sanibel and Florida real estate in general, don’t hesitate to reach out! team@McCallionRealty.com