ORLANDO, Fla. – February came in just about frozen over, and a lot of us experienced temperatures unlike what we’re used to in the Sunshine State.
If you’re not a fan of the cold, I’d imagine by now with such spectacular weather in play across town you may be wondering if another big freeze is going to happen again.
Let’s unpack that a bit.
For just about everyone across the United States, we’ve kind of turned winter off temporarily. That’s because our large-scale pattern is still adjusting and acclimating to the big swap we just went through.
We once had a massive Arctic trough reaching down out of Canada southward over the eastern half of the nation down to our neck of the woods in the Orlando area.
That’s been vacated and pushed eastward. Ridging has taken its place, which is responsible for the clearer and warmer conditions we’ve observed the last few days.
There will be some snow across parts of the upper U.S., and especially the higher terrain of the Rocky Mountains.
But I think we’ve started to really pivot away from tracking Arctic blasts to monitoring for future severe weather setups.
Looking down the pike the next two weeks, none of our computer models point toward any excessive cooldowns coming our way. This would suggest this subtropical high pressure will be lingering and holding steady for a good chunk of February.
As we warm up, some fragments of wintry weather will try to dip south out of Canada and the northern United States.
Cold and warm in the weather realm are like oil and water. They don’t mix well.
The same Valentine’s Day storm system we’ve been discussing here and there is likely our first real chance at seeing some severe weather action across the Deep South, Dixie Alley and the Gulf Coast states.
Depending on the intensity of the low pressure, and how much warm, moist air we can pull in over our state will determine if thunderstorms find their way here.
Each of the different oscillations that meteorologists look to when trying to determine how cold and wintry parts of the country will get are depicting us settling into a La Nina pattern for the next few weeks.
The cold will remain trapped up north and down south we’ll remain on the more mild side.
From today through to the tail end of the month, Central Florida will try to stay in the upper 70s and low 80s. I don’t see any significant fronts coming up.
Granted, computer models can change, as we’re very familiar with. As trends shift or hold steady, I will be the first to let you know. But right now, it appears we might be in store for an early arrival of spring despite what Phil the Groundhog advertised earlier this month.