Record-high temps in Beaufort County send 'nature into a tizzy'

Every day since Christmas Eve, a new high-temperature record has been set in Beaufort County.

The warmer-than-usual weather has "sent nature into a tizzy," Margie Fox, owner of The Garden Gate Nursery in Bluffton, said Tuesday.

Plants that would ordinarily be bare are blooming, and critters that would be hibernating are slithering around, experts say.

"It's kind of a tricky situation," Fox said. "The unseasonably warm weather triggers plants to do things they aren't ready to do yet."

April Foster, an employee at Palms on the Parkway nursery on St. Helena Island, said citrus trees, which normally start sprouting limes and oranges after the winter months, "are already getting ready to fruit."

That early fruiting "could be a problem because (the citrus trees) might not bloom as well in springtime," she said.

Perennials and shrubs probably won't be affected by the recent warm spell, Foster said.

Fauna appears to be just as confused by the weather as flora.

Joe Maffo, owner of Hilton Head Island-based Critter Management Inc., said the heat has "certainly played havoc on nature."

"We have noticed baby raccoons and squirrels, and typically, we only see those in springtime," he said.

Reptiles, which are typically dormant at this point in the year, are also still roaming the Lowcountry.

"It's unbelievable," Maffo said. "We are getting calls about gators every day pretty much -- snakes, too."

The heat, however, does not seem to have affected local mosquitoes.

Beaufort County Mosquito Control director Gregg Hunt said that despite the temperature, the insect's population "is on the downswing right now, which is typical of most mosquito seasons."

"We still continue to see mosquito breeding, but not to the large scale we see in the summer and fall," he said. "It was a true headache for us in late summer and early fall because of higher than normal levels of rain."

The record-breaking warm spell won't last forever.

Temperatures around Beaufort County are expected to dip closer to the seasonal average by the end of the week, according to meteorologists with the National Weather Service office in Charleston.

"We should start to see it cool down a little bit on Thursday," meteorologist Carl Barnes said Tuesday. "And by late Thursday into Friday, a cold front is moving in."

After temperatures of at least 80 degrees every day for nearly a week, the highs this weekend are expected to be in the low 60s and high 50s.

How hot is it?

While the National Weather Service in Charleston doesn't keep historical records for specific areas around Beaufort County, here are the recent record-breaking temperatures as recorded by gauges at the Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport:

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Follow reporter Lucas High on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Lucas.

Related content:

• Dreaming of a balmy Christmas? Holiday heat wave may break Beaufort County records, Dec. 23, 2015
• Record-breaking heat brings Beaufort County crowds out in droves, Dec. 26, 2015

This story was originally published December 29, 2015 at 1:23 PM with the headline "Record-high temps in Beaufort County send 'nature into a tizzy'."