Tallahassee Almanac

A COMPENDIUM OF FACTS AND FIGURES — AND JUST PLAIN FUN STUFF TO KNOW

TALLAHASSEE

•Tallahassee is positioned 30.45 degrees north of the equator and 84.28 degrees west of the prime meridian. Its elevation is 203 feet above sea level.

•The city was incorporated on

Dec. 9, 1825. It has a total area of 103.1 square miles. • Leon County’s population was 292,817 in the 2021 census. It was 275,487 in 2010 and 240,201 in 2000.

•At 22 stories, Florida’s Capitol is the tallest building in the city. The modern structure was built behind the more classically styled “old” Capitol, which was supposed to be demolished after the new building was completed.

However, the Historic Capitol was preserved, and the juxtaposition of the old and new buildings creates a unique vista for those driving westward on Apalachee Parkway. • Florida’s Prime Meridian — the marker from which all surveying in the state is based — is located about a quarter-mile away from the

Capitol building in Cascades Park in a plaza behind the Capital City

Amphitheater. • Tallahassee was the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi River that did not fall to the Union army. • Tallahassee is the only municipality in Leon County, and about 66% of county residents live within the city limits. Voters have gone to the polls four times (1971, 1973, 1976, 1992) to vote on consolidating the city and county into one entity, but it was rejected each time. • All of Tallahassee and Leon County is within Florida’s 2nd congressional district, represented since Jan. 3, 2017, by Republican Neal Dunn. Florida’s two U.S. senators are Republicans

Marco Rubio, since 2011, and Rick

Scott, since 2019. • Historians suspected that Hernando de Soto wintered in Tallahassee in 1539 during his explorations, and in 1987 a state archaeologist, the late

B. Calvin Jones, pinpointed and excavated the site. About a mile away from the Capitol building, it is the only site in the U.S. definitively associated with the de Soto expedition.

TALLAHASSEE’S AVERAGE* RAINFALL

January February March April May June July August September October November December Annual

4.41" 4.28" 5.24" 3.53" 3.36" 7.76" 7.14" 7.60" 4.91" 3.24" 3.10" 4.24" 58.81"

TALLAHASSEE’S AVERAGE* HIGH AND LOW TEMPERATURES

HIGH

LOW January 63.9˚F 40.5˚F February 67.8˚F 43.5˚F March 74.2˚F 48.6˚F April 80.2˚F 54.4˚F May 87.4˚F 63.0˚F June 90.8˚F 70.8˚F July 92.1˚F 73.0˚F August 91.5˚F 73.2˚F September 88.6˚F 69.6˚F October 81.7˚F 58.5˚F November 72.5˚F 48.0˚F December 65.9˚F 42.9˚F

* From the Southeast Regional Climate Center, 30-year average for 1991–2021 LET IT SNOW? Tallahassee can be considerably colder than Central and South Florida, with temperatures dipping below freezing on some winter nights. But don’t break out the skis and snow boots just yet. According to the local office of the National Weather Service, Tallahassee has had measurable snowfall only eight times since 1891. However, Tallahassee saw its first measurable snowfall in almost three decades in January 2018, when 0.1 inches was recorded. It was the first snow in Tallahassee since December 1989, when 1 inch fell, and it’s the first recorded measurable snowfall in the capital city during the month of January since April 1885. The most snow Tallahassee has seen, 2.8 inches, fell in February 1958.