Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
May your days be balmy and bright
Picture-perfect sunshine for hitting beach
If Rudolph lived here, his nose would be even more red — from sunburn.
This is the kind of record-breaking week we South Floridians like to brag about to our windshield-scraping, longjohn-wearing friends and relatives up north.
The temperature in Miami reached 87 on Monday, breaking the record for Dec. 19, which had been 85 in 1989.
In Broward and Palm Beach counties, temperatures skated close to records, too. Fort Lauderdale’s high of 84 was just under the 1961 record of 86, while West Palm Beach’s high, also 84, was 4 degrees below the 1989 record.
The heat will ease off the rest of the week, but high temperatures in the upper 70s and low 80s
will still be about 5 degrees above normal, according to the National Weather Service’s Miami-South Florida forecast office.
For the weekend, which includes the start of Hanukkah at sundown Saturday and Christmas Day on Sunday, the expectation is for temperatures in the upper 70s and low 80s — nearly reaching the Christmas Day records 85 in Miami, 87 in West Palm and 89 in Fort Lauderdale.
“Christmas Day itself should be on the warm side, with a chance of showers, but it shouldn’t be rainy all day,” said Robert Garcia, a senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service. “Right now it looks like Christmas is going to be really nice and warm — what people have come to expect in South Florida.”
So you can also expect the usual Christmas phone calls. Your friends up north will tell you that it’s freezing, that cars are buried in their driveways and that it’s minus 20 outside. “Yeah, it’s cold here too,” you’ll say, looking down at your sandals. “I mean, it got down to 73 last night.”
The gloating can get obnoxious on social media. “Meanwhile in Florida,” that meme that shows a blizzard juxtaposed with a beach, gets trotted out like the one sweater you own.
Mike Mineo, a South Florida native, moved to Nashville about a year ago to focus on his music career. Some of the only-in-South Florida aspects of the holiday made their way into a song he wrote, “Christmas in South Florida.” (Disclaimer: Some of the lyrics might not be appropriate for children.)
The video, posted to Facebook on Dec. 14, had over 26,000 views as of Monday and features lyrics that no doubt many thin-blooded locals can to: “Christmas in South Florida, the country's makin’ fun of us for wearing snow coats in 60 degrees.”
“Yeah, it’s nice,” said Mineo, 30, who grew up in Boca Raton. “You’re not shoveling snow, and it’s not cold as hell, but at the same time you do feel a little left out, you know, you’re not bundling up and doing all the wintry things.”
Instead, Santa Claus himself was giving out candy Monday on Fort Lauderdale beach, after traveling in a motorcade from Fort Lauderdale police headquarters. The appearance was part of the city of Fort Lauderdale’s Santa on the Beach event.
The beach is where Mineo wrote his South Floridastyle ode to the holiday season.
“Though they all make fun of us,” he sings toward the end of the song, “instead of shovelin snow, we'll be chillin’ down on the beach.”