BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — People in Hernando County are preparing for night two of temperatures dipping into the 20’s.
Christmas may be over but Jack Frost is hanging around as city workers bundled up in freezing temps to take down Christmas decorations on Thursday morning.
Will Singer is the manager at Mountaineer Coffee in Brooksville, he says other states might not think 20 degrees is that cold but in Florida it is.
"They’ll be making fun of us saying you can’t handle it if it gets below 50, and we’ll say well, its true. We’re not used to this type of weather," Singer said.
Dennis Henize was in charge of the National Weather Service down in Key West. Now he’s retired and has lived in Brooksville for several years.
"We’ve had several mild winters so in contrast this little spell of cold weather really seems extreme," he said.
Theresa Curbelo says she is not a fan of the cold.
"It was freezing, there was ice on my car," Curbelo said.
Then there’s farmers like Jeff Casey of JG Ranch, who are using ice to help protect their crops. He said, "strawberries must be kept at 31 degrees."
Casey says when temps drop below freezing, they spray water on the strawberries to forms a layer of ice that protects the berry.
"As long as we keep ice on them and the ice remains wet, the strawberries will remain at 32 degrees," he said.
And for the next couple of nights the farmers will be busy spraying as temps fall below freezing, but Casey says its all part of being a strawberry farmer.
