It's advice your mother would approve of.
"MAKE SURE YOU WEAR A HAT AND GLOVES," the National Weather Service says (yes, in all caps), in its wind-chill advisory.
Here's what NWS Miami said:
"A wind chill advisory means that very cold air and strong winds will combine to generate low wind chills. Prolonged exposure can result in hypothermia if precautions are not taken. If venturing outdoors ... make sure you wear a hat and gloves."
The governor has issued an emergency executive order to help get citrus fruit out of the trees before the freeze. The state's Division of Emergency Management has its own detailed advice for the frigid weather, including handy mnemonics like the Five P's.
Does this mean the smudge pots are coming out?
Contrary to what is, I think, popular belief, smudge pots don't actually warm the trees like hoboes sitting around a barrel fire. Instead, it creates a sort of mini global warming.
"The smudge pots' ... thick smoke cloud acts to reflect infrared radiation (heat radiation) from the orchard, thus 'trapping' heat between the cloud and the ground," according to a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin in Stout (I smudge you not).
As a Midwestern child, the seemingly annual news reports of an impending freeze of Florida's citrus crop always included TV shots of the smudge pots. With the weather outside my Missouri home often featuring deep snow and temperatures in the teens, the efforts of the citrus growers seemed comically fruitless. From that perspective I couldn't imagine they would make much of a difference -- of course, I didn't understand that it wasn't as cold here as it was outside my door. Furthermore, Al Gore was just a reporter for Nashville's The Tennessean -- global warming wasn't in the lexicon.
I'm all in favor of helping citrus growers. I don't want anyone's crops to fail. I don't want orange juice prices to increase. I stand four-square against frostbite and hypothermia.
But still, as a Florida transplant from more northern climes (I do have a Florida native in the family, a 3-year-old who eschews jacket and coat), I have a hard time taking seriously a hazardous weather advisory that concludes with "wear a hat and gloves."
Good advice, to be sure. Your mother would agree.