I remember one February it got down to 13 degrees here (yes, I know, not that cold compared to some places, but we Southern Californians didn't know what to do with it). The city persisted in watering plants even in the extreme cold, with, per usual, half the water ending up in the street. People weren't expecting the ice and it created quite a traffic jam as cars slid on it and crashed into each other. The lovely tropical landscaping froze (though most of it eventually recovered). The citrus trees in my yard were damaged, but interestingly enough, the ones with sweet fruit (tangelo, kumquat, grapefruit, and orange) were less badly damaged than those with sour fruit (lemon and lime). Someone told me that the sap of the sweet-fruited trees has more sugar than the sap of the sour-fruited trees, and the sugar helps protect against frost damage.
We haven't had snow that stuck to the ground in this town since 1987. We had about an inch and a half then (it used to be more frequent, judging from old photos and the stories told by people who've been here a long time, but it's a warmer, dryer place now than it was 100 years ago).
