Floridians woke up to the unwelcome sight of frost on Thursday morning as temperatures plunged to the mid-30s.
A frost advisory was issued Wednesday night for Marion County, which is northwest of Orlando. The advisory will remain in place until 9 a.m. Thursday. The chilly weather was out of the norm for the area, which sees an average low of 53 degrees in December.
On Wednesday evening, temperatures dropped from the upper 40s.
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“When the winds die down, that’s when the temperatures will start falling quickly,” Orlando station WFTV’s chief meteorologist, Tom Terry, said.
Later in the day on Thursday, temperatures are expected to rise to nearly 70 degrees, ClickOrlando.com reported.
AccuWeather senior meteorologist Adam Douty told Newsweek that although they were below normal, the low temperatures can happen. Tallahassee hit a low of 31 degrees Wednesday night. The normal low for the area is 44 degrees.
“It’s quite a bit below normal but definitely not unheard-of for the time of year,” Douty said. “It can definitely get cold in northern and central Florida.”
Frost forms when temperatures are cold enough to freeze the dew to ice. Temperatures must be at 32 degrees or below, but frost can still crystallize even if outside temperatures are above freezing because temperatures can be as much as 10 degrees colder close to the ground.
The frost is an early arrival for Floridians, as most parts of Marion County don’t see their first frost each winter until mid- to late December. Orlando typically doesn’t see frost until January.
“Current southeast temps this Thursday morning. Brrrrr! As sunshine rises will anyone in FL/GA see any frost (Florida snow haha),” said social media user Mike’s Weather Page on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday morning.
The chilly wake-up for many residents in north-central Florida could become a trend this winter as El Niño influences the weather throughout the season.
El Niño is a climate pattern in the Pacific that occurs once every two to seven years. It results from warming waters and weakened trade winds, causing warmer waters and the Pacific jet stream to be pushed toward the U.S. West Coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted an uncommonly warm winter for much of the U.S. because of El Niño, but typically the climate pattern could cause a colder than normal winter in Florida.
NOAA released a winter weather prediction map about El Niño’s impacts in October, forecasting that much of the northern U.S. will experience warmer temperatures, the Midwest will be dry and the West Coast, Texas and Florida will have a wet winter.
Parts of the Southern U.S. might also experience cooler temperatures in the winter that could produce heavy snow.
El Niño has led to colder than average winters in southern Florida in the past, according to Miami’s WTVJ. The station said that the last time the U.S. experienced an El Niño as strong as this one was in 2009-2010, when the area had an “exceptionally cold season.”
However, Douty told Newsweek that AccuWeather’s 90-day forecast for Florida shows near or slightly above-normal temperatures for much of the state, with the western panhandle a little below normal. The forecast shows that precipitation is above average for all of the state.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.