STORM2K

This is just downright RIDICULOUS!! As I am typing it's still 80º at 9pm and it's only February 18th! Whoever wished for the cold fronts to quit coming can move someplace further south.

boca wrote:With the NAO continuing to remain positive I think cold fronts are over for us in South Florida and temps this week in the upper 80s it’s now summer in February. Welcome to the new norm.

It's not over until it's over! But after today I have my doubts.

Just 10 days away from Meteorological Spring, which most times is on time here in the FL Peninsula. Looking at the 10 day range, winter is over for us. Actually it was over for us 2 weeks ago

Here in Orlando this winter has been averaging a whopping 2.6 degrees above average despite the cool and rainy second half of January.

psyclone wrote:

NDG wrote:

psyclone wrote:Yeah it was a unique winter with a good bit of cool but no cold weather. Agree about the part of "no winter" in south florida. I think that's the whole point. It is a different world and it always has been. If you're looking for something different the only answer is a U-haul pointed north. On the other hand..i do wonder about our stretch of warm winters. we've only had one freeze here in the tampa bay area in the past 9 years. It's almost like South florida is now Cuba, central florida is now south florida and north florida is now central florida. As more and more of the tampa bay area is moated off by UHI thanks to net migration and development...freeze climo may be altered on a permanent basis..

You wouldn't believe the mango trees now in the Orlando area and Royal Palm Trees now have no problems growing here.

Royal palms are surprisingly tough. Much more so than coconut palms and even foxtails. We've got quite a few good sized ones around here and they did fine during the 2010 arctic blast while other more sensitive tropicals were severely damaged or worse. I am a fan of tropicals in general so i'm loving our stretch of good luck. Moss draped oaks with smaller tropicals tucked safely under the canopy is like a scoop of Key West and Tallahassee. It's an awesome combo

The trick about the Royal Palm Trees is to protect them really well when they are young when it gets below freezing, once they are mature they do much better than even the Foxtail palms. I lost 2 newly planted Royal Palms back in 2010 but it was because it was the coldest December in record, but other mature royal palms in my area did survived.
Now I have fox tail palms doing well.

NDG wrote:

psyclone wrote:Yeah it was a unique winter with a good bit of cool but no cold weather. Agree about the part of "no winter" in south florida. I think that's the whole point. It is a different world and it always has been. If you're looking for something different the only answer is a U-haul pointed north. On the other hand..i do wonder about our stretch of warm winters. we've only had one freeze here in the tampa bay area in the past 9 years. It's almost like South florida is now Cuba, central florida is now south florida and north florida is now central florida. As more and more of the tampa bay area is moated off by UHI thanks to net migration and development...freeze climo may be altered on a permanent basis..

You wouldn't believe the mango trees now in the Orlando area and Royal Palm Trees now have no problems growing here.

That is interesting. I actually have noticed certain trees growing in Orlando and Tampa that I think of more as belonging in South Florida, extreme South Florida at that.

What I find crazy is not just the lack of "cold" in South Florida, it's the increasingly transient nature of the "cool" we do get. It's like a front passes, then a few hours later, the wind is already trying to swing around to the E-NE. I seem to remember this happening more often, a front would pass, we'd get a couple cool/cold nights, then the wind would swing to the NE for a couple days, and we'd be warmer but still relatively cool. Now, a front passes and we're literally back to a hot, humid tropical regime with SE winds within a couple days.

AdamFirst wrote:Melbourne and Fort Pierce reached 89 degrees today, breaking the previous records set in 2008. Vero Beach tied its all time record at 88 degrees.

I hate every second of it.

It was pretty nasty out yesterday.....just way too early for this kind of warmth. With a juicy S-SE wind, it was downright uncomfortable.

NDG wrote:Just 10 days away from Meteorological Spring, which most times is on time here in the FL Peninsula. Looking at the 10 day range, winter is over for us. Actually it was over for us 2 weeks ago

Here in Orlando this winter has been averaging a whopping 2.6 degrees above average despite the cool and rainy second half of January.

A little off topic but even despite the polar vortex briefly unleashing itself late last month most (if not all) the eastern third of the U.S. is running above normal this winter since December 1st.

As I take a look at the temps around the country (which includes 30's and rain as close by as northern alabama and Georgia) I will enthusiastically accept our summer preview.

Latest guidance projecting temps in portions of interior South Central peninsula once again to reach into the upper 80s Thursday afternoon.

It is going to be one hell of a long summer if we are getting this type of virtually record warmth down the state in late February for heaven's sake.........

There is no reason to think that this is not going to continue with our persistent + NAO, which continues to be a seemingly permanant fixture around here every winter season.

I gave up on winter here after the great proverbial rug was pulled from under most of us analysts (No -NAO) by Mother Nature, after our great escape we had from the SSWE in late January into early February. Winter died right then and there for me.

Oh well... I am well into my research and other projects that have kept me busy recently. Since we are well into the jump of Spring to Summer, I will be curious to see if El Nino continues to rage on the next couple of months. We have had so much rain this past Fall/Winter here in that we can stand to go through a dry period this Spring season. The total rainfall since November 1, 2018 at my locale: 14.65 inches.

I will follow up with a more detailed summary of the 2018-2019 meteorological winter season (or near non-winter in many aspects) a bit later..

90 in Naples and Winter Haven with an 88 in Brooksville. Things remain on track for a more sane temp regime as we near March.

hope it dont stay warm too lo0ng that mean water will start warring up sooner and we hope
EL Nino will be here for hurricane season warm water early in season could very warm water heart of hurr season

Naples smashed its all time February record of 88 by hitting 90 today. Many other cities in Florida hit the upper 80s. It was humid with dew points in the low to even mid 70s at St. Petersburg Airport On Tampa Bay.

I have had low to mid 80s for the last several days. Even at night around 9 pm it was 74 and humid.

Patrick99 wrote:

NDG wrote:

psyclone wrote:Yeah it was a unique winter with a good bit of cool but no cold weather. Agree about the part of "no winter" in south florida. I think that's the whole point. It is a different world and it always has been. If you're looking for something different the only answer is a U-haul pointed north. On the other hand..i do wonder about our stretch of warm winters. we've only had one freeze here in the tampa bay area in the past 9 years. It's almost like South florida is now Cuba, central florida is now south florida and north florida is now central florida. As more and more of the tampa bay area is moated off by UHI thanks to net migration and development...freeze climo may be altered on a permanent basis..

You wouldn't believe the mango trees now in the Orlando area and Royal Palm Trees now have no problems growing here.

That is interesting. I actually have noticed certain trees growing in Orlando and Tampa that I think of more as belonging in South Florida, extreme South Florida at that.

What I find crazy is not just the lack of "cold" in South Florida, it's the increasingly transient nature of the "cool" we do get. It's like a front passes, then a few hours later, the wind is already trying to swing around to the E-NE. I seem to remember this happening more often, a front would pass, we'd get a couple cool/cold nights, then the wind would swing to the NE for a couple days, and we'd be warmer but still relatively cool. Now, a front passes and we're literally back to a hot, humid tropical regime with SE winds within a couple days.

The +NAO regime we have been in during the winters the past 5-6 years or so has a big part in it, thus tropical plants that get planted in this area take advantage to mature & survive damaging freezes in later years. If central FL was to get moderate to hard freezes as often as north FL our landscape would had been a lot different.

Hottest day of the year so far. Tampa already 84 with a heat index of 88 and we still have 3 hours of heating to go.

Tampa Bay Hurricane wrote:Hottest day of the year so far. Tampa already 84 with a heat index of 88 and we still have 3 hours of heating to go.

Winds shifted to SSW off the water so it's dropped to 81 at 4PM

HurricaneBelle wrote:

Tampa Bay Hurricane wrote:Hottest day of the year so far. Tampa already 84 with a heat index of 88 and we still have 3 hours of heating to go.

Winds shifted to SSW off the water so it's dropped to 81 at 4PM

Yup that water influence prevented our temps from hitting ridiculous territory. Spotty showers along the west coast sea breeze reminiscent of early rainy season type activity.

Looks like we will probably at least tie a record later today. The projected max temp is forecast to be 85 degrees later today at the NWS Jax office.


It is already 81 degrees currently at my locale. I think we break the record later this afternoon. It is crazy muggy out there. Feels like May weather


This is beyond crazy this record heat in late February.

Fingers crossed here (might even resort to a cool weather "rain dance" ), but we now have two consecutive model runs (last night's 0Z and this a.m.'s 6Z) by GFS suggesting chilly weather might actually return to all of Florida! That's the good new; The bad news is assuming these model runs are even right, our coolest temps in February....... are probably not going to occur until the first week of March . No need to even debate the Las Vegas odd's on a 222 hr. GFS forecast even verifying

Hey at least for those of us in North and Central Florida, at least it looks like we'll get a brief and mild respite from the heat this Monday/Tuesday. Looks like it'll only be a 10 degree cool front but I'll take it. Doesn't appear to do all that much for you guys all the way down south though. Maybe slightly cooler night-time lows for a couple nights out in the Western 'burbs and S.W. Coast area.

HurricaneBelle wrote:

Tampa Bay Hurricane wrote:Hottest day of the year so far. Tampa already 84 with a heat index of 88 and we still have 3 hours of heating to go.

Winds shifted to SSW off the water so it's dropped to 81 at 4PM

You know things are warm out there when you have to hope for a Southwest breeze..... just to cool off. Thankfully Gulf coastal waters haven't begun to really heat up yet. That just brings back miserable memories from last years Red Tide and algae blooms. Speaking of the "R" word, did it actually spread as far north as Tampa and Clearwater last year? I didn't think it had but was not sure.

At this juncture, I will take any type of cooldown over this current abnormal heat we are experiencing right now.

We will see how much it may cool down as we enter into the first week in March. I have been fooled by the medium to long range models too much this past winter season. I will not take the bait too much anymore until I wee it within the 5 day range.