COLD ENOUGH TO SNOWBOARD IN JACKSONVILLE

Is it cold enough to ski in Jacksonville?  Well this morning it was cold enough but not long enough.  Friday morning was a cold one but a morning that was far from setting any cold record.  The record today was 22 set in 1927.  The Jacksonville airport hit 3, Craig Field 34, Glenn St. Mary 29 and Hastings 31.
Tonight will be colder and we can expect a hard freeze except south of St. Johns county and the beaches.   A hard freeze means temperatures reaching 28 degrees for two hours or more.  These are the conditions for ice riding in North Florida.

Snowboarding in Jacksonville from Mark Collins on Vimeo.

Around this time last year we had a cold snap with temps dropping into the 20s.  I was probably the first person to go go snowboarding on TV down an ice hill in Arlington.  A local resident turned on the sprinkler system early in the morning and hosed down a grass hill adjacent to the river.  The water froze and the hill was certainly slick enough to ski or snowboard.  In fact a couple of the hoses cracked and the sprinkler froze up completely before we could spray down an even larger area.  It was an interesting experiment with a fun payoff.  If you are not up for making an artificial ski run tonight, this weekend will be a good time to head  8 hours north to some of the ski spots in North Carolina.