Correlation Between Sun Spots and 
Florida Freezes 
J. R. Watson, Gainesville 
A year or so ago the writer ran across 
the chart of sun spot maxima which we 
have before us. This is copied from Els- 
worth Huntington’s famous book on “Cli¬ 
mate and Civilization.” The correlation 
between certain dates on this map and cer¬ 
tain Florida freezes at once caught the 
reader’s eye. The result was that we 
looked up the records of Florida freezes, 
chiefly in the address of Geo. R. Fair¬ 
banks at the meeting of this society in 
Jacksonville in 1895, an d reported in 
Bulletin No. 34 of the Florida Agricultur¬ 
al Experiment Station for the early 
freezes, and have plotted these freezes on 
this chart. 
In talking over this subject with Mr. 
W. W. Yothers this spring the reader dis¬ 
covered that Mr. Yothers had worked and 
read along these same lines. The result is 
this paper, which owes much of its data to 
suggestions from Mr. Yothers. 
It has long been recognized that sun 
spots, which are disturbances in the sun’s 
atmosphere, similar in many respects to 
the areas of low pressure of cyclones in 
our own atmosphere, have an effect on the 
climate of the earth in that they increase 
the storminess of the surface; that is, 
they increase the frequency and intensity 
of our cyclonic storms and as we well 
know, it is the areas of high pressure fol¬ 
lowing these cyclonic storms which cause 
our Florida freezes. An area of low pres¬ 
sure traveling across the country from 
west to east usually brings rain and is fol¬ 
lowed by an area of high pressure and 
cold weather which, during winter time, 
usually enters North America from Brit¬ 
ish Columbia or Washington, dips down 
to the southeast and then frequently turns 
to the northeast and passes off into the At¬ 
lantic, bringing with it cold weather and, 
if sufficiently intense, a freeze. 
It has also long been recognized that 
sun spot maxima increase the unevenness 
of the distribution of the heat of the 
earth’s surface. For instance, it is a well 
known fact that the west coast of any con¬ 
tinent is warmer than the corresponding 
east coast in the same latitude by many 
degrees. We can compare, for instance, 
California with the Carolinas. During 
sun spot maxima this difference in temper¬ 
ature between the two coasts is increased. 
This explains why it very seldom hap¬ 
pens that we have a freeze the same year 
that California has one. The same cause 
which makes California particularly liable 
