FLORIDA · FANNING SPRINGS · FEBRUARY
The spring pays no attention to the month. When a USGS gauge last read the vent at Fanning Springs, on September 11, 2026, the water was 73.4°F (23.0°C), and it reads close to that on any day of any year. February decides only what happens in the air above it: a 69.6°F afternoon, a 45.2°F dawn, and 2.96 inches of rain spread across a handful of days.
That makes February a swimmer’s month rather than a sunbather’s. You get the driest of the three winter months, a 130-space lot with room in it, and a walk from the car that feels colder than the water you are walking toward. Everything not tied to the date, the drive in, the beds, the rest of the region, sits in our Florida guide.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · FANNING SPRINGS · FEBRUARY
February is the driest of Fanning Springs’ three winter months, and the spring itself sits near 73.4°F whatever the air is doing.
AIR 69.6°F / 45.2°F · SPRING NEAR 73.4°F · 4.8 WET DAYS · 130 PARKING SPACES
Go for: swimming in water that reads warmer than the afternoon air, 715 feet of boardwalk you can have to yourself, and a parking lot that does not close the gate on you.
Think twice before: booking a tent night or planning to lie in the sun: an average February brings 4.1 nights at or below 32°F and mornings near 45.2°F.
Air: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, Cross City AP · Water: USGS gauge 02323502 · Facilities: Florida DEP 2024 inventory
On this page
- Fanning Springs weather in February69.6°F days, 45.2°F nights, 4.8 wet days
- How cold the mornings get4.1 nights at or below freezing
- Crowds and parking at the state park130 spaces, and February does not fill them
- Can you swim in February?The gauge read 73.4°F at the vent
- A two-day planBoardwalk, swim, paddle launch, home by 6:21 pm
- February against January and MarchHighs, lows and rain for all three months
- Is February worth the drive?Who it suits, and who should wait for March
Two questions run underneath all of them: how warm the air gets, and whether the water cares. One answer moves by 9 degrees between January and March. The other does not move at all.
Fanning Springs weather in February: average highs, lows and rain days
| Measure | February |
|---|---|
| Average high | 69.6°F |
| Average low | 45.2°F |
| Precipitation | 2.96 inches |
| Days with 0.10 inch or more | 4.8 |
| Days with 1 inch or more | 0.8 |
| Nights at 32°F or below | 4.1 |
| Daylight on February 15 | 11 hours 12 minutes |
These are NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals from station USW00012833, and that station is Cross City AP, about 27 miles (44 km) from the vent. A real thermometer at a real airport, then, not a reanalysis grid cell. Every figure here describes the air: 69.6°F for the average high, 45.2°F for the average low, 2.96 inches of precipitation across the month. The water at the swim area answers to nothing on this list.
Rain shows up as visits rather than as drizzle. An average February records 4.8 days with at least 0.10 inch, roughly one day in six, and 0.8 day with an inch or more, so most Februarys get a single proper soaking and some get none at all. The other twenty-three days leave dry ground and a dry boardwalk behind them.
Between the 45.2°F dawn and the 69.6°F afternoon lie 24.4 degrees. No single jacket covers that, so pack in two halves: fleece and long pants for the first two hours, a t-shirt for the middle of the day. Add a second towel and a dry hoodie. Drying off at 45°F and drying off at 70°F are different jobs, and one of them is done in the parking lot.
On February 15 the sun rises at 7:09 am and sets at 6:21 pm Eastern Standard Time, giving 11 hours 12 minutes of daylight (sunrise-sunset.org). Light, not temperature, sets the back end of the day here: once the sun drops behind the tree line the air loses its afternoon in a hurry, and you want to be changed and in the car by six.
How warm is Fanning Springs in February?
The month’s average high is 69.6°F and its average low 45.2°F, a spread of 24.4 degrees inside one day. Set that against the spring, which the USGS gauge read at 73.4°F. That is one instantaneous reading rather than a monthly mean, and a spring does not swing the way a bay does. On an average February afternoon, the water is about four degrees warmer than the air standing over it.
So you dress twice. At 8 am, with the thermometer in the mid-40s, long sleeves and closed shoes are not optional. By one or two in the afternoon most people are in shorts on the boardwalk. Going in is easier than getting out: the water catches your breath for ten seconds, then a 69.6°F breeze on wet skin does the real work. The hoodie in the bag matters more than any wetsuit.
Frost is part of the deal. The same NOAA normals count 4.1 nights in an average February at or below 32°F, which is frost on a windshield a few mornings a month rather than a cold snap that shuts anything. Anyone renting one of the park’s five cabins should know the number before booking a February arrival. The spring is untouched by it: groundwater leaves the vent at its own temperature, year round.
How busy is Fanning Springs in February? Crowds, prices and the demand peak
We found no occupancy series and no monthly room rates for Fanning Springs, so we crown no month cheap and no month expensive. What the state does publish is capacity: 130 parking spaces at Fanning Springs State Park. That number, not an opening hour, is what decides a summer Saturday, because the gate closes when the lot fills. A February weekday asks almost nothing of those 130 spaces.
Booking follows the same arithmetic. The park holds five cabins, and five is the entire on-site inventory, so a February weekend is a reservation you make early rather than the week before. We could not verify a booking window or a cancellation rule, so we give no number of weeks. For beds elsewhere in the state, our lodging guide lays out the regional patterns.
We could not verify a lodging-tax rate for Fanning Springs, so we quote no percentage. The same applies to the gate: floridastateparks.org answers automated reads with a 403, and a fee copied from another Florida park does not transfer, since fees vary by park and by season. Bring a card and small bills, read the board at the entrance, and budget the wider trip with our Florida cost guide.
One upgrade genuinely changes February: sleeping inside the park. A heated cabin a short walk from 73.4°F water means you are in the spring before the first day visitor parks, on a morning when the air is still in the 40s. Beyond that, the boardwalk, the swim area and the launch are the same facilities in any month of the year.
Things to do in Fanning Springs in February
February hands you the swim area, and at a park with exactly one designated swimming area that is worth something. In July, 130 spaces and a single swim zone turn arrival time into the whole plan. In February the plan is simply waiting for the air to catch up with the water, which happens somewhere around noon.
Fanning Springs State Park is small and the state has counted every piece of it: 715 feet of boardwalk, 1 observation platform, 1 designated swimming area, 1 launch for canoes, kayaks and tubes, 5 cabins, 130 parking spaces (Florida DEP, 2024 Recreational Facilities Inventory). At the vent, the USGS gauge measured 41 cubic feet per second leaving the ground. That volume is why the water stays clear: it is replaced faster than it can cloud.
None of that changes with the season. Only the air does. The spring held 73.4°F when the gauge last read it, while February tops out at a 69.6°F average high, so the water is the warm part of the park. By March the relationship flips, with a 74.9°F average high putting the air in front. And the 28-degree gap between a 45.2°F dawn and the spring is what makes an early February swim a decision rather than a reflex.
As for what costs nothing, we could not verify which facilities sit behind the entrance fee, because the state park site blocks automated reads. One more February question deserves a straight answer: we found no manatee count for Fanning Springs, so we name no number and promise no sighting. Our manatee guide covers the springs where winter counts are published.
Fanning Springs in February: a two-day itinerary
Day one runs between a 7:09 am sunrise and a 6:21 pm sunset. Arrive around 10, once the air has climbed out of the 40s. Walk the 715 feet of boardwalk first and take the observation platform while you are still dry. Swim between noon and 3 pm, the warmest stretch of a 69.6°F day. Change by 4, then take the boardwalk a second time for the low light, and leave with daylight in hand.
Day two belongs to the launch, where canoes, kayaks and tubes go in from a single ramp; a morning there beats an afternoon if you want the river quiet. If the sky turns, and 4.8 days in an average February record at least a tenth of an inch, reverse the order. Rain does nothing to 73.4°F water, so the swim survives weather better than the paddle does. On the rarer inch-or-more day, keep the car packed and check the forecast again at noon.
Fanning Springs in February vs January and March
| Measure | January | February | March |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 65.9°F | 69.6°F | 74.9°F |
| Average low | 41.8°F | 45.2°F | 49.6°F |
| Precipitation | 3.38 in | 2.96 in | 3.53 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 5.7 | 4.8 | 4.6 |
| Spring water | near 73.4°F | near 73.4°F | near 73.4°F |
February sits 3.7 degrees above January and 5.3 below March on the average high, and the lows step in the same order: 41.8°F, 45.2°F, 49.6°F. Rain is where February takes the round, with 2.96 inches against January’s 3.38 and March’s 3.53, plus 4.8 wet days against January’s 5.7. March counts marginally fewer wet days at 4.6 but drops more water when it does rain. Through all three, the spring holds near 73.4°F.
Push four weeks forward and March gives you a 74.9°F average high, the first of these months where the air outruns the water, with lows near 49.6°F taking the bite out of the morning. You pay 0.57 inch of extra rain for it. Pull four weeks back and January costs 3.7 degrees of afternoon and adds nearly a whole wet day, with the identical water waiting at the bottom of the steps. The full-year view is in our month-by-month Florida verdict.
Is February a good time to visit Fanning Springs?
Yes for swimmers, paddlers and anyone who judges a day by how few cars share the lot. No for sunbathers: a 69.6°F average high with a breeze on wet skin is not lying-around weather, and 4.1 freezing nights make a tent a real commitment rather than a cheap one.
If that second description fits, wait for March. A 74.9°F average high and 49.6°F lows change what the hour after a swim feels like, and the air finally runs warmer than the spring. The trade is 3.53 inches of rain and a Florida calendar that gets busier from there, as our seasonal guide sets out.
What February alone gives you: the driest of the three winter months, 2.96 inches, with the same 73.4°F water and 130 parking spaces that stay available all weekend.
The last word
Decide one thing before you turn off the highway: are you here to swim or to walk? Swimmers want the middle of the day, when 69.6°F air makes 73.4°F water an easy entry. Walkers can take the 715 feet of boardwalk at any hour and skip the towel. One piece of background we have not used yet: Florida Statute 373.802(5) reserves the label Outstanding Florida Spring for every historic first-magnitude spring as the Florida Geological Survey determines them, plus six springs named by hand in the law. We did not verify where Fanning sits on that list today, so we leave the label off and give you the gauge instead.
Sources & data for this guide
- February air normals, rain days and freezing nights · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USW00012833, Cross City AP, FL, about 27 miles from the spring · checked Sep 24, 2026
- January and March normals (same station, same 1991-2020 period, not estimates) · NOAA NCEI · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Daylight, sunrise 7:09 am and sunset 6:21 pm on February 15 · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Spring water at 73.4°F (23.0°C) and discharge of 41 cubic feet per second · USGS National Water Information System, station 02323502 Fanning Springs · instantaneous reading, Sep 11, 2026
- Boardwalk, cabins, swim area, launch and 130 parking spaces · Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Recreational Facilities Inventory, 2024 annual report · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Outstanding Florida Springs definition · Florida Statutes 373.802(5) · checked Sep 24, 2026
- We could not verify the entrance fee, the opening hours or any February manatee count: floridastateparks.org returns 403 to automated reads, and the FWC manatee page renders client-side · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Water temperature is a single gauge reading, not a monthly average · confirm conditions with the park before you swim.