page_title: Tallahassee, Florida
section_title: Climate
hierarchical_section_title: Tallahassee, Florida / Geography / Climate
caption_attribution_description: English: Fall Colors in Downtown Tallahassee
context_page_description: Tallahassee is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2019, the population was 194,500, making it the 7th-largest city in the U.S state of Florida, and the 126th-largest city in the United States. The population of the Tallahassee metropolitan area was 385,145 as of 2018. Tallahassee is the largest city in the Florida Big Bend and Florida Panhandle region, and the main center for trade and agriculture in the Florida Big Bend and Southwest Georgia regions.
  Tallahassee is home to Florida State University, ranked the nation's eighteenth best public university by U.S. News & World Report. It is also home to Florida A&M University, the fifth-largest historically black university by total enrollment. Tallahassee Community College is a large state college that serves mainly as a feeder school to Florida State and Florida A&M. Tallahassee qualifies as a significant college town, with a student population exceeding 70,000.
context_section_description: Tallahassee has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), with long summers and short, mild winters, as well as drier springs and autumns. Summer maxima here are hotter than in the Florida peninsula and it is one of the few cities in the state to occasionally record temperatures above 100 °F or 37.8 °C, averaging 2.4 days annually. The record high of 105 °F (41 °C) was set on June 15, 2011.
  Summer is characterized by brief intense showers and thunderstorms that form along the afternoon sea breeze from the Gulf of Mexico. The daily mean temperature in July, the hottest month, is 82.0 °F (27.8 °C). Conversely, the city is markedly cooler in the winter, with a January daily average temperature of 51.2 °F (10.7 °C). The city averages 32 nights with a minimum at or below freezing, and on average, the window for freezing temperatures is from November 20 thru March 21, allowing a growing season of 243 days. As Tallahassee is part of USDA Hardiness Zone 8b, each winter's coldest temperature is typically slightly below 20 °F (−7 °C); readings below 15 °F (−9 °C) are very rare, having last occurred on January 11, 2010. During the Great Blizzard of 1899 the city reached −2 °F (−19 °C) on February 13, which remains Florida's only recorded reading below 0 °F (−18 °C). At the time, Tallahassee's record low was colder than the record low in either Ketchikan, Alaska, or Tromso, Norway. The record cold daily maximum is 22 °F (−6 °C), set on the same day as the all-time record low, while conversely, the record warm daily minimum is 81 °F (27 °C) on July 15, 1980.
  Snow and ice are rare in Tallahassee. Historically, the city usually records at least flurries every three to four years, but snowfall of 1 inch (2.5 cm) or more occurs only once every 17 years on average. The closest location that receives regular yearly snowfalls is Macon, Georgia, 200 miles (320 km) north of Tallahassee. Nonetheless, Tallahassee has recorded a few accumulating snowfalls over the last 100 years; the heaviest snowfall was 2.8 inches (7 cm) on February 13, 1958. Tallahassee's other recorded measurable snowfalls were 1.0 inch (2.5 cm) on February 12–13, 1899, and December 22–23, 1989; 0.4 inches (1.0 cm) on March 28, 1955, and February 10, 1973; 0.2 inches (0.5 cm) on February 2, 1951; and 0.1 inches (0.3 cm) on January 3, 2018.
  Although several hurricanes have brushed Tallahassee with their outer rain and wind bands, in recent years only Hurricane Kate, in 1985, and Hurricane Hermine, in 2016, have struck Tallahassee directly. Hurricane Michael passed 50 miles to the west after making landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida in October 2018 as a Category 5 storm, resulting in 95% of Leon County being without power.
  The Big Bend area of North Florida sees several tornadoes each year during the season, but they are generally weak, cause little structural damage, and rarely hit the city. The most recent tornado to hit Tallahassee occurred on April 19, 2015. The tornado was rated EF1, and created a path as wide as 350 yards (320 m) for almost 5 miles (8 km) near Maclay Gardens. Damage included numerous downed tree limbs and a car crushed by a falling tree. During extremely heavy rains, some low-lying parts of Tallahassee may flood, notably the Franklin Boulevard area adjacent to the downtown and the Killearn Lakes subdivision, outside the Tallahassee city limits, on the north side.
caption: Tallahassee experiences four seasons. Shown here are the autumn leaves along the sidewalks of Monroe Street in Downtown Tallahassee.
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