The U.S. battled a colossal winter storm this past weekend, and finally, after days of hot weather, Florida is getting a piece of the cold pie.
Temperatures in Florida, including Tampa Bay, were falling throughout Monday as the northern cold seeped into the state.
The frigid air plunged into Florida while thousands of flights remain canceled across the country on Monday, including dozens at Tampa International Airport.
The airport reported Monday afternoon that a little more than half of its flights remained on time. However, 82 flights, or 16% of total flights, were canceled, and 147, or nearly 30% of flights, were delayed, according to airport data.
The numbers were an improvement from Sunday, when more than 200 flights were canceled in and out of the airport, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.
By early Tuesday, the mercury is expected to fall into the 20s along the Nature Coast and flirt with freezing in Tampa Bay.Parts of northwest Florida will be under a rare extreme cold warning Monday night into Tuesday morning when the wind chill could drop to a bitter 10 degrees.
The National Weather Service announced a freeze warning, when below-freezing temperatures are possible, for much of the Nature Coast and Pasco County that will go into effect at midnight and run until 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Those areas, along with inland Hillsborough, will also be under a freeze watch from late Tuesday through Wednesday morning. Forecasters said the watch could extend south, should guidance trend any colder.
The remainder of west central Florida, including Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, will be under a cold weather advisory from midnight to 9 a.m. Tuesday. Wind chills as low as 26 degrees are expected. If a person is exposed to the cold for too long, they could develop hypothermia, forecasters said.
When cold weather approaches, weather experts remind residents to protect the four P’s: people, pets, plants and pipes.
Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough announced cold weather shelters will open Monday night. In Pasco and Hillsborough, shelters will open again Tuesday night.
However, the weather service said the Tampa Bay region will be spared from the icy mess that has rocked much of the United States.The massive winter storm brought ice and power outages, impassable roads and frigid cold to much of the southern and eastern United States.
At least 18 weather-related deaths have been reported.
And on Monday, the U.S. workweek opened with yet more snow dumping on the Northeast.
Deep snow — over a foot extending in a 1,300-mile swath from Arkansas to New England — halted traffic, canceled flights and triggered wide school cancellations Monday. Up to two feet were forecast in some of the harder-hit places.
There were more than 800,000 power outages in the nation on Monday morning, most of them in the South, according to poweroutage.com. The region got its share of sleet and freezing rain during the storm. There also were more than 6,400 flight delays and cancellations and counting nationwide, according to flight tracker flightaware.com.
At one point Sunday morning, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warning, authorities said.
Some 12,000 flights also were canceled Sunday and nearly 20,000 were delayed.
Bitter cold followed in the storm’s wake. It got down to minus 40 degrees in parts of Minnesota on Sunday. Many communities across the Midwest, South, and Northeast awakened Monday to subzero weather. The entire Lower 48 states were forecast to have their coldest average low temperature of minus 9.8 F — since January 2014.
Record warmth in Florida was the only thing keeping that average from going even colder, said former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Ryan Maue, who calculates national averages based on National Weather Service data.
On Saturday, Tampa tied a daily temperature record when the heat climbed to 83 degrees.
But come Tuesday, heat will be a distant memory.
From Montana to Florida, the weather service posted cold weather advisories and extreme cold warnings as temperatures in many places dipped to zero and even colder. Wind made conditions even chillier and the overnight cold refroze roads early Monday in a cruel reprise of the weekend’s lousy travel weather.
The cold weather squeezing Tampa Bay is likely to last at least through the weekend. That means Tampa’s annual Gasparilla parade on Saturday is going to be chilly. Early morning lows are expected to be in the 40s, and daytime temperatures will top out only in the 50s.
In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least five people who died were found outside as temperatures plunged Saturday, though the cause of their deaths remained under investigation.
Two men died of hypothermia related to the storm in Caddo Parish in Louisiana, according to the state health department.
In Massachusetts, police said a snowplow backed into a couple walking in a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority parking lot in Norwood on Sunday. A 51-year-old woman was killed and her 47-year-old husband was hospitalized.
Two teenagers died in sledding accidents, a 17-year-old boy in Arkansas, and a 16-year-old girl in Texas, authorities said.
Three people died in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, on Sunday after shoveling or removing snow during the recent storm, the county coroner’s office said. They ranged in age from 60 to 84.
A 28-year-old teacher was found dead and covered in snow after leaving a bar in Emporia, Kansas, as temperatures dipped below zero, Emporia police said in a news release after using bloodhounds to find her body.
A man employed by a snow plow company died Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, after a plow backed over him while clearing a private lot, local police said.
Three weather-related deaths were announced in Tennessee, authorities said. Further details were not immediately available.
Pasco County shelters will be open on Monday and Tuesday, starting at 6 p.m. each night and closing at 10 a.m. the following day.
Shady Hills Mission Chapel: 15925 Greenglen Lane, Spring Hill
First Nazarene Church of Zephyrhills: 6151 12th St., Zephyrhills
Hillsborough County shelters will open Monday and Tuesday. All shelters will take in guests from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. both nights, or until capacity is reached.
Metropolitan Ministries has a limited number of motel vouchers for families. To pre-register for a voucher call (813) 209-1176. Phone lines are open until 5 p.m. Monday, or until vouchers are gone.
Hyde Park United Methodist Church: 500 W. Platt St., Tampa
Tampa Bay Mission of Hope: 110 S. Parsons Blvd., Brandon
Church of God of Prophecy Hyde Park: 107 S. Oregon Ave., Tampa
Amazing Love Ministries: 3304 E. Columbus Dr., Tampa
Greater New Hope Church Anointed Ministries: 2104 Mud Lake Rd., Plant City
The Portico: 1001 N. Florida Ave., Tampa
Pinellas County said cold night shelters will open Monday from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and will accept guests until they reach capacity.
Free bus rides from the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority will be available Thursday to shelters from 5 p.m. Monday to 7 a.m. the following day. Riders must tell drivers they’re going to a shelter to ride fare-free.
For information on family shelters, call 2-1-1.
St. Timothy Lutheran Church: 812 E. Tarpon Ave., Tarpon Springs
First United Methodist Church of Clearwater: 411 Turner St., Clearwater (allows leashed/contained pets)
Boys & Girls Club of Pinellas Park: 7790 61 St. N., Pinellas Park
First United Methodist Church of Pinellas Park: 9025 49 St. N., Pinellas Park (allows leashed/contained pets)
Unitarian Universalist Church: 100 Mirror Lake Drive N., St. Petersburg (requires use of stairs)
Salvation Army: 1400 Fourth St. S., St. Petersburg (requires valid ID for entry)
Allendale Church: 3803 Haines Road N., St. Petersburg
Northwest Church: 6330 54th Ave. N., St. Petersburg (allows leashed/contained pets)
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Material from the Associated Press supplements this report.
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