#14215 Postby northjaxpro » Fri Mar 01, 2019 1:54 am
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!
Last edited by
northjaxpro on Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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NEVER, EVER SAY NEVER in the tropics and weather in general, and most importantly, with life itself!!
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