Florida Weather

[chaser1]

It is absolutely pouring buckets here. My neighborhood has been crushed with heavy rain this Winter and we are cashing a big prize yet again.

You're not kidding? Just looked at radar and the heaviest convection looks like it's hardly progressing eastward and just sitting on top of you. Think you've gotten at least an 1" so far? C'mon and share some of that heavier stuff with us friends to your east LOL

[chaser1]

F.Y.I. for those Florida folk who might not have heard, the New FV3-GFS is still NOT ready for Prime-Time LOL. Sound's like there's still a couple bugs to be worked out possibly delaying it's use for a month or two. (as discussed within the Tropic's - Global Model Thread "The FV3-GFS upgrade postponed until further notice").

[psyclone]

We're definitely north of 1" here...probably closing in on 1.5". Radar looks to be filling in for areas to the east as well. Meanwhile...take a look at the WPC QPF progs and you'll see a boatload of QPF modeled on day 6 and 7 from southern Louisiana eastward to north florida and southern Georgia. This makes sense considering the calendar and thermal gradient likely to reside across the south. I'd expect an eventual severe threat to evolve in this time frame in addition to the heavy rain potential. March looks far more interesting than Feb...

[northjaxpro]

I agree with you Psyclone. Long range guidance has been consistent showing a very active southern stream jet going into the first couple of weeks of March. We have picked up so much rain the past 4 months here.
We could be in for a lot more.

[chaser1]

Wow, impressive! Could be widespread 3" plus for nearly the entire panhandle. Show's nicely where the temperature gradient and convergence looks to largely set up. Too bad that broad east/west band isn't a couple hundred miles to the south where they can probably really use it. Even right now though, look how juicy it's becoming well inland around Sebring with their popcorn cluster of activity that's popping up just north of the advancing warm front. Still, i'd say you guys there in that triangle from Spring Hill south to St. Pete and over toward Tampa are today's lottery winner

[boca]

We are in a moderate drought here in no rain zone area of Florida.

[psyclone]

There's no moderate drought anywhere in Florida per the US drought monitor's latest output. The state actually looks to be in pretty good shape considering what is often the case this time of year.

[boca]

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Look along the SE coast we are still in a drought, although not a moderate drought anymore.

[chaser1]

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Look along the SE coast we are still in a drought, although not a moderate drought anymore.

Both Elvis AND the drought, have left the building . Preliminary rainfall totals for W. Palm Beach for the month of February was at 2.55" for the month (about 1/10" above average for Feb). More importantly, I don't believe that this included the nearly 1/2" dumping that W. Palm Beach is presently getting. Furthermore, there's two days left in the month. There were moderate drought conditions for Miami northward along the coast all the way towards Melbourne leading into late January but as well all know here in Florida, a lot of difference can be made by one or two single rain events here in the tropics. This widespread stuff albeit boring, is a Godsend for us here fast approaching fire season. Here's to hoping for a few more like it.

[gatorcane]

Models seem to be persistent in a major pattern change for Florida with much below normal temps, 192 hours and timeframe coming in:

[gatorcane]

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Look along the SE coast we are still in a drought, although not a moderate drought anymore.

Boca we have been getting piles of rain in East Boca. Heavy rains as I type this. Maybe inland in West Boca not so much?

[boca]

Yeah gatorcane I was in it today so I’m eating my words.The drought map was posted on Feb 19th so maybe it wasn’t correct because it showed yellow along the SE coast.

[mlfreeman]

Models seem to be persistent in a major pattern change for Florida with much below normal temps, 192 hours and timeframe coming in:

https://i.postimg.cc/RZYDybgJ/gfs-T2ma-seus-33.png

https://i.postimg.cc/RhCdNcPz/ecmwf-T850a-seus-9.png

I bet it doesn't last long.

It seems like there's been one serious yet brief cooldown (2-3 days tops) in the first half of March for at least a decade now....then the inexorable climb begins.
It's seemed so regular to me that it now times when I have my jackets cleaned and stored for the season.

[northjaxpro]

Models seem to be persistent in a major pattern change for Florida with much below normal temps, 192 hours and timeframe coming in:

https://i.postimg.cc/RZYDybgJ/gfs-T2ma-seus-33.png

https://i.postimg.cc/RhCdNcPz/ecmwf-T850a-seus-9.png

I bet it doesn't last long.

It seems like there's been one serious yet brief cooldown (2-3 days tops) in the first half of March for at least a decade now....then the inexorable climb begins.
It's seemed so regular to me that it now times when I have my jackets cleaned and stored for the season.

Yeah, that is exactly how it is usually played out, at least here in North and Northeast Florida every year in March. It is the obligatory last gasp of winter.

It does appear that we will see a decent cool down during the middle of next week here. Model guidance has much of interior North Florida getting down to upper 20s in some areas. This remains to be seen. I would bet on this trending a little warmer as time progresses, as we still don't have the teleconnections set-up conducive for bringing deep penetration of cold to our region. This has been the case most of this past winter.

[northjaxpro]

Very wet and well above normal temperatures for the meteorological Winter 2018-2019 season, which just concluded for Northeast Florida and the Florida peninsula for the most part. It was mentioned in the NWS Jax Public Info statement that this is the warmest winter experienced for many areas in the region since the 1997-98 season.

El Nino and the Positive NAO dominated the weather across the region.


Among the main takeaways:

The pattern was simply too progressive with the El Nino. Zonal flow was dominant this past winter. This was a very big factor for the lack of big cold intrusions into the region, along with the + NAO persistence of course.

There were 3 big southern stream storm systems that impacted the peninsula, with two of them during the first half of December.The other was January 25-27, which brought widespread heavy rain to the peninsula, especally North and Central Florida.

Gainesville had their warmest February on record. Jax had its eighth warmest on record.

There were only 3 freezes (temps at or. below 32 degrees) measured for the entire meteorological winter season at my home weather ob, as well as at the NWS Jax office. As a side note, our first freeze actually occured on November 28, 2018, which was just outside of the start of meteorological winter. which was 31.6 degrees. Freezes occured at my home ob on Dec 12 ,2018 which was 31.3 degrees, January 21, 2018, which was 32.4 degrees, and the last freeze to this point, 30.2 degrees on January 31, 2019. This is also the coldest temperature reading of the season here at my locale

There were no hard freezes observed anywhere across the North and Northeast Florida region this past season. Also, there were not any temperatures that were measured below 30 degrees here at my.locale all winter. I can not remember the last time that occured..

NWS Jax office confirmed that the average number of freezes in a typical meteorological sesson here is 16. We did not reach even 1/4 of that number this past season(well if you count the Nov 28 freeze, though that is just outside of the period). This alone highlights just how abnormally warm it has been here across the region the past season.

December mean average temp was +2.6 degrees above normal for Jacksonville.

January mean was + 1.8

February mean +2.3

Record heat temperatures experienced in December and again in late February across the peninsula

Rainfall at my locale for the Dec 1 2018 - February 28, 2019 period ended up being 10.47 inches. As a side note, I measured over 5 inches of rainfall in November, although this is outside of the meteorological winter period. Still I have picked up right at 16 inches total rainfall here since November1, 2018.That is just amazing. Some areas in interior North and North Central Florida have received 20+ inches in the same period.

A peak 71 mph wind gust was reported from Clearwater Beach buoy on December 21 in the wake of the biggest storm system to impact the state this winter season during Dec 18 -21.

Jax had record barometric pressure rscord set during that same intense southern stream strom system Dec 18-20. New record now 996.4 mb.

There are other main features too, which I have not even mentioned for the sake of brevity here. However, for me, mainly it was just overall much too warm for my taste this past winter. It is getting to the point now that the winters are not even average temp wise anymore here in North and Northeast Florida. There was a time not too long ago when the thinking was that growing certain things like certain plants and trees, like citrus, was unthinkable because of the frequent freezes, and even hard freezes we used to see up this way. However, because of the dominance of the positive NAO across our region since the 2009-10 season, I have seen more citrus trees pop up and other type of plants and shrubbery being grown up here in this area now. Just an amazing turn of events these past 7-9 years or so. The graphic NDG showed a week or so ago pointing out how dominant the + NAO has been during these past several years in winter speaks for itself.

So now we officially kickoff the meteorological Spring Season 2019. We now are only 91 days until the start of the 2019 North Atlantic Hurricane Season. It is just around the corner now, and will be here on us real soon!

[NDG]

Happy first day of Meteorological Spring! Though it seems that it came a month ago to FL. Orlando ended February at 7.1 deg F above average but no where close to last year's February which was the warmest on record. For the meteorological winter we ended up 3.1 deg F above average.

All I know is that I am glad the pattern across the US has brought much needed rains for California.
This season should also serve a lesson that not all El Ninos are created equal, at the end an overall sypnotic pattern rules who gets the cold or warm wx and where the wet pattern sets up.

[northjaxpro]

Yeah. Good point about El Nino NDG. We definitely got the warm and wet El Nino pattern this past season to put it mildly.

Also, Mother Nature gave a huge slice of humble pie to many analysts, including me , in that despite all the forecasts hinting at a negative -NAO during the SSWE in late January/early February, it never came to fruition. It usually does happen with such a massive blocking pattern over the North America continent. However, Mother Nature said no I am boss! I am still licking my wounds on that . But, that is the beauty of weather and this science. Nothing is 100% a sure thing! Definitely not in weather.

[psyclone]

Another mild winter in the books. Feb 2018 stands on its own for exceptional warmth but Feb 2019 takes the silver (a distant second) for warmth at Tampa. Now we're on the verge of a cool snap as we head into March that should be noteworthy, especially considering how warm it has been recently.

[chaser1]

Come to me, "oh ye last gasps of Winter" LOL! How bad is it that i'm practically giddy over the anticipation of the three nights of cooler temps for all of us in Central and North Florida. Certainly not looking like it'll be anything especially impressive but i'll be happy with two of those evenings getting into the 40's. At this point, i'm guessing that S. Florida will get a 2-night cool down with the winds possibly turning easterly by late Wed for you guys way south.

As a followup to Jax's post, I just read that February ranked as the 2nd warmest ever for Orlando (and 2nd or 3rd for Melbourne & Daytona as well). As far as the entire Winter goes, I don't believe that this ranked in the top 10 warmest but was the 10th all-time warmest for Daytona, Sanford, and Ft. Pierce (5th warmest for Melbourne). Given all that, I suppose I should just be happy to have gotten the nice cool down's that we have thus far.

[psyclone]

Beyond that...the shoulder seasons provide long stretches of amazing weather here. Reliably warm and sunny but not hot weather. For me March and April represent (typically) the best weather of the year with April being the absolute apex thanks to its dry/sunny and warm tendencies.