Pumpkin spice, Daylight Saving Time and 80-degree temps: 10 ways to tell it's fall in Florida

Ah, fall. When the leaves change color and everyone breaks out the sweaters against the pleasant chill in the air.

Wait, no, sorry. We're Floridians.

We don't get the obvious signs of seasonal change other states enjoy. While people in Vermont are oohing and ahhing at the brilliant displays of changing leaves that send waves of riotous color across the landscape, we're still on the beach watching actual waves and slapping on more sunscreen.

As the saying goes, fall in Florida is on a Tuesday this year.

But there are ways to tell that we've moved into a new season. Subtle, nuanced signs that experienced Floridians have come to appreciate. Here's what to look for.

1. Spirit Halloween stores start to bloom

Earlier and earlier every year, the colors change in retail stores from red, white and blue to orange and black.

It begins with the ritual clearing and preparation of the shelves when retail stores get past July 4 and realize there's no other major holiday until October. Spooky resin ghosts, witches and bats start to appear in Michaels, At Home and TJ Maxx in mid-August and increase dramatically across the state. Pumpkins and skeletons in odd positions begin to show up on the lawns of your neighbors who have been waiting all year to do just that. It becomes impossible to watch TV without hearing about this year's Halloween Horror Nights at Universal or Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Disney.

And, finally, the Spirit Halloween season begins when you wake up one morning and find that practically every empty storefront anywhere in your city is now abruptly sporting a big yellow sign. It doesn't matter that it's still 90 degrees in the shade.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween.

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2. People start to think about turning their thermostats up

They don't do it, mind you. But they start to think they should.

Florida doesn't really start to cool off till October, "cool" being relative. High temps in the Sunshine State of mid-80s to the lower 90s generally "persist well into October," according to the National Weather Service. "The first real cool down doesn't usually occur until November."

What we do start to get is less humidity (whew!) and cooler overnight temps. During the summer it stays hotter through the night, making it harder for the land to cool off and removing any chance of relief after the sun goes down. Low temps in most of the state tend to start dropping below 60 degrees in October.

But don't expect winter coat-and-hat weather till we're well into everyone else's winter. Fall weather here means we start thinking about socks again, we don't break into a sweat when we check the mail, the occasional hoodie, and fewer fistfights over the shady Publix parking spots. We might even open a window.

The Farmers Almanac is predicting a wetter-than-normal winter for us, by the way, and unseasonably cold temps in mid-February.

3. The Daylight Saving Time complaints begin

Floridians resent changing their clocks, even if we do get an extra hour of sleep in the fall, and the complaining starts early. OK, the end of Daylight Saving Time (2 a.m. EST Sunday, Nov. 5) might make things safer for kids walking to school, but we've all forgotten since last March how to change the time in our cars and for many of us the next couple of months it will be easier to just look at the kitchen clock and do the math than to actually take it off the wall and update it.

We dislike it so much that Florida senator Marco Rubio and seven other bipartisan members of Congress reintroduced the Sunshine Protection Act to permanently extend daylight saving time from eight months of the year to all year. The Florida Legislation passed it but the U.S. House has not, yet.

On the plus side, as the Earth continues its swing around the sun the days get shorter, and we finally start seeing nightfall before 8:30 p.m. again. By Halloween sunset will be at 6:40 p.m. this year.

Sunsets may also be more spectacular. During the autumn months, sunlight passes through more of our atmosphere before we see it and it hits more particles in the air. According to the Weather Channel, you also get less blue in the sky and more brilliant reds and oranges because blue light is more easily scattered by air molecules.

4. The snowbird migration begins

"How do you know when it's fall in Florida? The license plates begin to change colors."

As temps drop everywhere else, the snowbirds — Northerners with summer homes or condos down here — start to feel the chill in their bones and they load up their cars and luggage to make their way down to the still-warm climate of Florida. Seasonal residents make up a big part of our population (and economy) every fall and winter.

5. Pumpkin spice is EVERYWHERE

For those of us not interested in pumpkin spice, it seems like every year our friends and family turn into helpless drug addicts who drive frantically across town every morning to get their fix. But for those of us who do enjoy pumpkin goodness, it's the happiest time of the year.

Pumpkin spice season also seems to come earlier every year. 7-Eleven brought back its Pumpkin Spice Lattes and pumpkin coffee already on Aug. 1, Krispy Kreme followed and added pumpkin donuts, and Dunkin' upped the ante with all of that plus donut holes, a pumpkin muffin, and Goldfish Dunkin' Pumpkin Spice Grahams, for some reason.

Starbucks, the company that started this 20 years ago, usually brings its Pumpkin Spice Latte back by the end of August.

6. It's hunting season

There's hunting of one sort or another — rabbits, wild hogs, raccoons, beavers, coyotes, etc. — all year round in Florida, but some of them kick off in the fall, while Florida's alligator hunting season comes earlier, starting Aug. 15.

• Deer and turkey season starts in July in South Florida and continues through the fall for different weapons in different zones of the state.

• Gray squirrel season begins Oct. 14 and runs through Mar. 3.

• Quail season starts Nov. 11 and runs through Mar. 3.

• Bobcat and otter seasons don't begin till Dec. 1.

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7. Football!

Fall means football, even if you're still in shorts and flip-flops.

After a taste of preseason games, the NFL regular season kicked off Sept. 7 in Kansas City (defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Detroit Lions) and finishes the regular season on Jan. 7.

College football started with Week 0 games on Aug. 26, but Florida games started the next week on Aug. 31.

And then there's high school football to keep you fired up every weekend till December. Better stock up on wings.

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8. The rain slows down but the hurricanes perk up

Fall traditionally means a drop in the every-single-day thunderstorms of the summer, which is good, but it also means more tropical storms and hurricanes, which is bad. Roughly 3/4 of the hurricane activity we see every year happens after Aug. 14. The peak of the season is Sept. 10.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is calling for 14-21 named storms to develop this year, of which six to 11 could become hurricanes with two to five of those possibly becoming major hurricanes, according to the latest update released on Aug. 10. That includes the storms we've already seen this season: eight tropical storms and hurricanes Don, Franklin, Idalia, Lee, Margot and Nigel.

NOAA increased the prediction for the year to "an above-normal level of activity."

9. The Florida winter memes begin

For the next six months, people up north will be experiencing cooler weather and occasionally extreme cold, and Floridians down here in the warm will laugh at them. I think it's required in a Florida Statute somewhere.

10. Florida's fall colors

Ha! We DO get resplendent fall foliage! You just have to look a little harder for it, that's all.

Florida maple, sweetgum, crape myrtles, blackgums, correl and cypress trees all change their leaf colors, with peak times toward late November. Most of the fall colors can be spotted in the Panhandle and Duval County area, although there are scattered fall-color spots farther south. Some good places to look are:

• Torreya State Park, west of Tallahassee, boasts "the finest display of fall color found in Florida." Southern sugar maple, sweetgum and sourwood trees start to blaze in late October.

• Three Rivers State Park, on Lake Seminole an hour away from Tallahassee. Watch for oaks, maples and deep-red pine trees.

• Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park in Wakula Springs is home to one of the world's largest freshwater springs and cypress swamps that take you back to old Florida, plus red sugar maples, beech trees and even beautyberry bushes that turn purple in cooler weather.

• Ormond Scenic Loop and Trail in Ormond Beach offers 30 miles of old Florida beauty that goes through four state parks and six local parks for a view of red maples, hickory trees and oaks.

• Flying Eagle Preserve in Inverness near Orlando has hardwoods and cypress trees that start to change in late October.

Graphics: Fall leaves may be less vibrant in 2023 as foliage suffers under excessive heat

See? Fall is about to be all around us. Grab a pumpkin spice latte, put on a YouTube fireplace video, and enjoy it. Just keep the a/c on for now.

When is fall?

The autumnal equinox, when the Sun crosses the equator going from north to south and days start getting shorter, will occur at 2:50 a.m. ET Sept. 23 in the Northern Hemisphere, according to the Farmer's Almanac.

C. A. Bridges is a Digital Producer for the USA TODAY Network, working with multiple newsrooms across Florida. Local journalists work hard to keep you informed about the things you care about, and you can support them by subscribing to your local news organization. Read more articles by Chris here and follow him Bluesky at @cabridges.bsky.social or on Twitter at @cabridges

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: When is fall in Florida? 10 signs of the new season. Here's our list