While schools closed in preparation for freezing temperatures, rain was the only precipitation in Gainesville on Wednesday.
It didn’t snow Wednesday.
It snowed 150 miles northwest in Tallahassee. But after a cold rain in Gainesville on Wednesday morning, any snowflakes brewing stayed in the clouds.
The city was quiet. Alachua County Public Schools and P.K. Yonge Research Development School closed Wednesday and Thursday because of the risk of icy roads.
But Depot Park was empty Wednesday afternoon, gold ribbons from the holiday season fluttering in a chilly breeze. Roper Park, a few blocks north of University Avenue, was also empty. One runner, wearing a hat, sweatshirt and shorts, ran past Lake Alice on Museum Road.
Maude's Classic Cafe had a slow start to the morning. When worker Layne Wrighton checked the cafe’s statistics Wednesday morning, she saw six transactions were made by 8:30, compared to the usual 25 to 30.
“I think people did not want to get outside their comforters,” Wrighton said. Before she came in, a coworker had time to make a cheesecake, a feat not typically accomplished quickly because of customers.
Wrighton predicted customers would be back after the initial cold snap.
Maria Huff Edwards, a retiree who looks after the Grove Street neighborhood between Northwest Sixth Street and North Main Street, spent Wednesday afternoon covering plants in the neighborhood’s community garden.
“I don’t know that I need to cover them, but it’s supposed to be 26 (degrees) tonight,” she said pulling thin, white fabric over 7- to 8-foot tall citrus trees that were planted a couple of years ago. “I will feel really bad if they die and I didn’t at least try to cover them.”
Her avocado tree was doing well, but “we’re not used to this kind of weather for so many days,” Edwards said.
The 40-degree weather didn’t keep John Stranick, of Fort White’s Big Cypress Bakery, from setting up his stand at the Union Street Farmers Market. He started making his artisan loaves of bread Monday.
“I don’t have a choice,” he said. “The weather’s so freaky around here it changes hour to hour.”
Stranick sells bread at the Union Street market on Wednesdays and in Ocala on Saturdays. He lived in Chicago for 35 years.
“People are chicken,” he said.
His advice to Floridians: Wear layers.
“There’s no such thing as bad weather,” he said. “Only bad clothing.”
Today is forecast to be warmer, according to the National Weather Service in Jacksonville, with a high of 47 degrees. Catholic schools, including St. Patrick Interparish School, Queen of Peace Catholic Academy and St. Francis Catholic Academy, reopen today.
The region is under a hard freeze watch Thursday night, with a low of 22 degrees.
County schools and P.K. Yonge are to open Friday, when the high is again forecast to be 47 degrees. Temperatures are expected to be in the low 50s Saturday and up to the 60s on Sunday.