Storing Cannabis Through a Fort Myers Year

Last updated 2026-08-12

The number, and why it is the easy part

Cannabis flower keeps best in air held near 62% relative humidity. Below that it dries, the trichomes go brittle and it crumbles to dust before you finish it. Above it, moisture is trapped against plant material in a sealed container, which is how mold starts. Both ends ruin it.

That number isn't in dispute. The hard part is that Lee County spends half the year well above it, and the other half, indoors with the air conditioning running, well below it.

May to October, the wet half

Outdoor air here runs in the seventies and eighties for relative humidity through the wet season, and a screened lanai is outdoor air with a roof on it. A container opened and closed on the porch takes in that air every time, and a sealed jar then holds it against the flower for days.

This is the half of the year when the failure is damp. You smell it first. The smell goes flat and sweet instead of sharp, and the material packs down when it should crumble.

Do the opening indoors, in the air-conditioned part of the house, and close it before it goes back out. A two-way humidity pack in the container will pull the excess down, but it is doing remedial work every time and it is spent much faster for it.

November to April, the dry half

The problem inverts. Outdoor humidity drops, and more importantly the air conditioning runs as dehumidification rather than cooling. An air-conditioned Florida room in February can sit in the forties, which is drier than a Colorado winter.

Now the failure is drying out, and it is faster than people expect. Flower left in a part-empty jar in a conditioned room can be noticeably drier inside two weeks. Two weeks.

The container is doing the work in this half. A small jar you fill beats a large one you half fill, because the empty space is the reserve of dry air that pulls moisture out. The same two-way pack now releases instead of absorbing, which is what makes it worth having in both seasons.

Storm season, when the air conditioning stops

This is the case nobody plans for and it is specific to living here. A house without power in September loses its dehumidification, and the indoor air climbs to match the outdoor air within hours. Everything that was sitting comfortably in a conditioned room is now in the wet half of the year, indoors, in the dark, for however long the outage runs.

The practical answer is the same one that covers the rest of hurricane preparation: things that don't depend on the grid. A sealed container with a fresh two-way pack rides out several days without power far better than an opened one. A gauge inside the jar tells you afterward whether anything changed at all, which beats guessing.

Heat matters as much as moisture here. An interior closet stays cooler and steadier than anywhere near a window or an exterior wall, and it is already the part of the house you can lock.

Where it usually goes wrong

The gauge is reading the room. A hygrometer on the shelf tells you about the air the container is sitting in, which isn't the air the flower is in. The small ones sit inside.

The pack is spent and gives no warning. A two-way pack works until it doesn't, and the only signal is that it goes hard. In the wet half of the year here they are working constantly and they last less time than the packet suggests.

The container is too big. Half-empty is the enemy in both seasons: too much air to condition in winter, too much air brought in each opening in summer.

Where a jar fits

The jar is the outer layer around the packaging, so what matters is that it seals and that it blocks light. Ultraviolet or colored glass earns its price on anything left on a shelf; clear glass in a dark closet does the same job for nothing.