page_title: Tampa Bay area
section_title: Climate
hierarchical_section_title: Tampa Bay area / Geography / Climate
caption_attribution_description: Satellite image of w:Tampa Bay, Florida, USA. The cities of St. Petersburg (on the peninsula) and Clearwater are easily visible.
context_page_description: The Tampa Bay area is a major populated area surrounding Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida in the United States. It includes the main cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater.
context_section_description: The Tampa Bay area has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen Cfa), with hot, humid summers, with daily thunderstorms,  drier, predominantly sunny winters, and warm-to-hot springs with a pronounced dry season maximum. On average, two days experience frost per year in the cooler parts of the Tampa Bay area, less than annually in the coastal parts. However, hard freezes (low temperatures below 28 °F/−2 °C) are very rare, occurring only a few times in the last 75 years. The United States Department of Agriculture designates the area as being in hardiness zones 9b and 10a (the latter being western and coastal, due significantly to maritime influences of the Gulf of Mexico and the 400-square-mile Tampa Bay). Plant climate-indicator species, such as coconut palms, royal palms, as well as other elements of Florida's native tropical flora, reach their northern limits of reliable culture and native range in the area. Highs usually range between 65 and 95 °F (18 and 35 °C) year-round. Tampa's official high has never reached 100 °F (38 °C)—the all-time record high temperature is 99 °F (37 °C). St. Petersburg's all-time record high is exactly 100 °F (38 °C).
  Pinellas County lies on a peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, and much of the city of Tampa lies on a smaller peninsula jutting out into Tampa Bay. This proximity to large bodies of water both moderates local temperatures and introduces large amounts of humidity into the atmosphere. In general, the communities farthest from the coast have more extreme temperature differences, both during a single day and throughout the seasons of the year.
caption: Tampa Bay Area from space
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