[8] The city is also home to the National Weather Service office that serves East Central Florida including the cities of Orlando, Kissimmee, Sanford, Deltona, Daytona Beach, Cape Canaveral, Port St. Lucie and Stuart.

[9] Evidence for the presence of Paleo-Indians in the Melbourne area during the late Pleistocene epoch was uncovered during the 1920s.

C. P. Singleton, a Harvard University zoologist, discovered the bones of a mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) on his property along Crane Creek, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Melbourne, and brought in Amherst College paleontologist Frederick B. Loomis to excavate the skeleton.

Loomis found in the same stratum mammoth, mastodon, horse, ground sloth, tapir, peccary, camel, and saber-tooth cat bones, all extinct in Florida since the end of the Pleistocene 10,000–8,000 BCE.

At a nearby site a human rib and charcoal were found in association with Mylodon, Megalonyx, and Chlamytherium (ground sloth) teeth.

A crushed human skull with finger, arm, and leg bones was found in association with a horse tooth.

[11] Similar human remains, Pleistocene animals and Paleo-Indian artifacts were found in Vero Beach, 30 miles (48 km) south of Melbourne, and similar Paleo-Indian artifacts were found at the Helen Blazes archaeological site, 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Melbourne.

The first school in Melbourne was built in 1883 and is on permanent exhibit on the campus of Florida Institute of Technology.

[16] The Greater Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1885 and is still active.

[20][21] During the Jim Crow years, black people were required to enter movie theaters via a different entrance from whites and sit in the balcony.

[22] In late 1942 the Naval Air Station Melbourne was established as a site to train newly commissioned Navy and Marine pilots for World War II.

Montgomery was also the first African American student of Brevard Engineering College, later Florida Institute of Technology which named their Pioneer Award after him.

[29] During the week of August 22, 2008, a record 17.54 inches (446 mm) of rain fell caused by Tropical Storm Fay.

[30] On February 18, 2017, president Donald J. Trump held his first post-inauguration rally at the Orlando-Melbourne International Airport drawing a crowd of approximately 9,000 people according to the Melbourne police department.

[31] Melbourne is located approximately 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Orlando on the Space Coast, along Interstate 95.

The climate is strongly influenced by the nearby Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream, as well as incursions of cold fronts from the north in winter months.

Melbourne averages 51 inches (1,300 mm) of rainfall annually, much of it coming in convective thunderstorms in the late May to early October time period.

The record rainfall occurred on August 20, 2008, when Tropical Storm Fay dropped 18.21 inches (463 mm).

[33] Melbourne can sometimes have moderate to severe drought conditions from late fall through spring, with brush fires occurring and water restrictions put in place.

On Christmas Eve 2003, the city as others in east central coast of Florida received snow from the ocean effect, when cold air passes over the considerably hotter ocean and causes the rise of air with higher temperature to bring moisture into the higher portions of the atmosphere.

The Melbourne area has many lush gardens and public landscapes, and is noted for the botanical northern limit of cultivated coconut palms on the Florida East Coast.

[63] The Eau Gallie Arts District is regularly highlighted as a top destination in the national rankings that are published.

The current Melbourne Public Library is a 25,000 square ft building located in Wells Park.

For the next five years they met in the former hospital of the Naval Air Station, until Stone High School was opened in 1958.

In the same area, a very minor east–west road, Brevard Drive, separates compass directions north and south.

The Union Cypress Company Railroad ran east to west through south Melbourne in the early 1900s.

Into the early 1960s, passengers could take one of two Chicago-bound trains (on alternating days), the City of Miami or the South Wind (both via Birmingham) and the New York-bound East Coast Champion, Havana Special, and Miamian from Melbourne's Florida East Coast station.

[91] The FEC operated local passenger service between Jacksonville and the Miami area until July 31, 1968.

[92] The Brightline passenger rail company is considering service to extend north from West Palm Beach to the Space Coast, but so far, has passed over Melbourne for Cocoa.

[99][100] Almost annually, the city is obliged to substitute the stronger free chlorine for the summer months when algae blooms are prevalent.