Orlando, Fla. – The newest drought monitor for our state is IN! Conditions are looking good after the hefty batches of rain we’ve gotten across Central Florida.
We will continue to see heavier rains as well, moving into this weekend with the aid of easterly wind flow driving moisture in as well as a newly-tagged tropical disturbance trying to get its act together right off the immediate east coast.
While development for that little system doesn’t seem all that confident right now, nevertheless it will add an extra layer of available moisture for our local weather pattern to feed off of and douse us with lots of rain through your Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
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Sunday does seem to clear us out, or at least begin to push all this nastiness toward the north away from our area.
If you checked out my article yesterday regarding what October looks like for us Floridians, the data suggests we’re in for an overall wet month. This may get in the way of some of your fall and Halloween festivities, but it isn’t like the entirety of the month will be a washout.
We’ll still get some breaks and dry periods intermittently, but overall compared to the average our rainfall totals may come in above the traditional threshold.
What happens after October? Especially once we get into winter. Does the rain stick around?
That’s going to be a tricky factor to determine, with our developing La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific. Drier times and arid conditions returning to our beautiful state seem almost inevitable through the winter months.
So we’ll have to hold on to our water as best we can, especially once we get into the Christmas season and the New Year ahead.
Climate models and seasonal dynamical models show evidence we’ll be back in weak La Niña conditions from about late this month through to the likes of February or March. This means another predominantly dry winter.
That could lead us right back into a drought over Central Florida, as we get away from the wet season and see less storm systems make it this far south.
It all has to do with the jet stream flow that occurs west to east over the northern United States. During La Niña, this usually keeps the flow well away from Florida and the rest of the southeast.
Winter storms tend to follow the flow of the jet as their life source for developing and strengthening. When the cold fronts attached to the southern half of these rotating low pressure centers sweep across our state, we can usually see some bands of light to heavy rain.
But then that’s it!
Whereas during El Niño conditions in the Pacific, we get these punchier storm systems to come down across the Gulf coast and over our area. This is when we really see an increase in our rainfall totals for the winter and spring months.
So while October could be a bit on the rainier and milder side, we’ll start to really see rain chances back off between November and December into the new 2026 year ahead of us.