An 1839 Description of Winter Weather in Mobile County:

"The difficulties attending a high and healthy state of cultivation here are much greater than can well be imagined by any novice One of our great difficulties is the extreme variableness of our winter months as an example I will give you the state of the thermometer for a few days during the month of March with the highest and lowest range during the same period 8th of March at 6 o clock in the morning 39 at 2 o clock same day 58 12th day 41 minimum 71 maximum 13th day 62 minimum 76 maximum on the 19th day a severe white frost on the 25th day 64 minimum 84 maximum lowest range during the month 34 highest 84. This was truly kept with the thermometer in the shade. From the above you will at once see it is perfectly impossible to keep the thermometer in the green house at a steady range for a week together I might almost say for twenty four hours. The thermometer one morning at sun rise out of doors will stand as low as 29 at 2 o clock same day will range as high as 60. Last February I knew the thermometer in the middle of the day as high as 78 in the shade two mornings after as high as 64 and might not be lower than 50 for three or four days. Then for four or five days it differs from extreme heat to extreme cold almost every six hours the gardener might go to bed and think all safe with the thermometer at 64 out of doors and every appearance of steady weather perhaps be tempted to leave his green house sashes down next morning by day light he actually finds it freezing. The above is a sketch of the winter difficulties."

 https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Magazine_of_Horticulture_Botany_and/-EsWAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Gilbert+R.+Rotton%22&pg=PA249&printsec=frontcover