Welcome To Tampa SAFeDATA

Other notable events include the Outback Bowl, which is held New Years Day at Raymond James Stadium. The Florida State Fair in mid-February, also brings in an attendance of 400,000, and Guavaween, an open street Halloween celebration with Latin flavor taking place in Ybor City.

Tampa is a part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area, most commonly referred to as the "Tampa Bay Area". The four-county area is composed of roughly 2.7 1,000,000 residents, making it the second largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state, and the third largest in the Southeastern US behind Miami and Atlanta. The Tampa Bay Partnership and U.S. Census data showed an avg annual growth of 2.47 percent, or a gain of approximately 97,000 residents per year. Between 2000 and 2006, the Tampa Bay market area has experienced a combined growth rate of 14.8 percent, growing from 3.4 1,000,000 to 3.9 1,000,000 and hitting the 4 1,000,000 people mark on April 1, 2007. It is the largest media market in the state of Florida and thirteenth largest DMA Market in the US.

The word "Tampa" is believed to mean "sticks of fire" in the language of the Calusa, a Native US tribe. Other historians claim the name refers to "The place to gather sticks". "Sticks of fire" may also relate to the high concentration of lightning strikes that Tampa Bay receives every year during the hot and wet summer months.Toponymist George R. Stewart writes that the name was the result of a miscommunication between the Spanish and the Indians, the Indian word being "itimpi", meaning simply "near it" (Stewart, pg. 231).

Tampa`s weather is subtropical, with hot summer days and a threat of winter frost only about every 2-3 years. Highs usually range between 65 and 95 °F (18 and 35 °C) year round. Surprisingly to some, Tampa`s official recorded high has never hit 100 °F (38 °C) - the all-time record high temperature is 99 °F (37 °C), recorded on June 5, 1985.

Temperatures are hot from around mid-May through mid-October, which coincides approximately with the rainy season. Summer days usually have highs in the low 90s °F (32-34 °C) with high humidity. The summer nighttime temperature usually drops into the mid 70s °F (21 - 23 °C).

The most common summertime weather pattern is for heat-produced thermals to turn puffy white cumulus clouds into threatening thunderis in charge of over the interior of the Florida peninsula. The typical wind pattern usually pushes these storms slowly westward toward the Tampa area. Sometimes they rain themselves out before making it to the coast; on many summer days in Tampa Bay, a stormy afternoon is followed by a pleasantly clear and cooler (though not exactly cool) evening. But occasionally the storms survive to move out over the Gulf of Mexico at night, where they can be seen from the beaches as spectacular light shows.