the crops go into stress and can survive sometimes a night or two or three. but you keep throwing at it you wind up with damage. at this point, i know you re trying to assess the value, any idea what this might mean to consumers at the grocery store? we ve talked about the ferns, what that might mean on valentine s day, the roses, guys and their sweet hearts. that s correct. under normal circumstances, florida is the only state in the country capable of producing fruits and vegetables and ferns for that matter in the dead of winter. november, december, and january. the ferns that you described are about the only ones growing in the country at the moment. and they are primarily used for valentine s day roses. there will be a drop-off in production there, we think. and believe it or not, 75% of the domestically produced fruits and vegetables during the dead of winter, those three months,
reporter: hey, chuck, good morning to you. they nicknamed this place hotlanta, but some are starting to call it icy hotlanta. scenes like this aren t doing much for that reputation of hotlanta. we re expecting a lot of this ice to melt today, because the forecast calls for the temperatures to reach above 40 degrees or so today, which is a blessing, we ll take it. we need to get the rest of this ice out of here. but down to our south, in the great sunshine state, they re going to need a whole lot more sun, because farmers are very worried about their winter crops down there. fruits and vegetables down there, freezing. some of those farmers deliberately watering those plants to try to insulate them from those cold temperatures, but if it stays cold for much longer, we re going to see some $1 million, multi-million dollar losses down there in florida, throughout the country. chuck, as you mentioned, a lot of folks freezing. 60% of the country suffering through 30-degree temperatures, an
danger, plus winter veg stabls, tomatoes, cucumber, squash. on the phone from tallahassee, how bad is it, terrence? caller: contessa, that s one of the questions we d like to answer. we have surveying the fields. we know there will be damage to each of the various agricultural sectors you described. it will ab matter of days and probably more as to the percentage of crops we ll lose in each of those areas. it s not as though freezing temperatures with frosts are unprecedented in florida. but what is it, the length of time the farmers have had to contend with this? that s it. we ve had not only record low temperatures in some areas but the duration has been unprecedented. it s been nine or ten days since we ve had normal warmth here.
losses, though, for farmers. this picture from tallahassee says it all. something like 14 degrees there, i think, this morning. the cold out there so bitter it s even ruining things for kids, as you can see. one of our i-reporters, a grandmother in florida, took the picture. rob marciano joins us now. 14 degrees in tallahassee? i suppose you could take the garden house out and spray it on the swing set, that s what it s going to look like. do you think that was an orchestrated picture. grandmas are pretty savvy these days. 41 degrees right now in orlando. ticking up above the freezing mark in spots. 46 in miami. let s show you video, other i-reports and then a live picture of miami here. here we go. more in the way of icicles. most of these are manmade. they spray the crops to try to insulate them with a coating of ice. it just never kind of gets old seeing icicles coming off of orange trees. that s in claire mont, florida.
it is 22 in new york city. things will warm up a bit. although not so much in new england. only 17 in caribou. the freezing temperatures continue across the northern plains down through the ohio valley as well. but then you got 40 s and 50 s from the mid atlantic down south. and take let s go ahead and take a look. we have some pictures of look at this. this is just heartbreaking. there was a hard freeze warning last night for the orlando area and there you can see those oranges. you know, the initial idea is they irrigate them before a big frost so that it would have a protective coating of ice and so it wouldn t kill the fruit inside. but, unfortunately, when you have a couple of days of that stuff, it is not good for citrus growers. the freeze watch continues through tuesday down in the not so warm sunshine. hopefully those farmers will be ok down there. brian, an amazing football game last night. it was more like a basketball