ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida faced an intense arctic outbreak when a massive push of cold, Siberian air made its way across the northern hemisphere and plopped itself across our viewing area. Temperatures felt below freezing, and most days we struggled to climb above the 50-degree threshold.
As of the last few days, we’ve rebounded in spectacular fashion. In the span of 24 hours, we bounced back from the coldest air of the season right into the 60s and 70s. The warmup isn’t done yet; if you check out our Pinpoint Weather App or tune in for your pinpoint accurate forecast, you’ll see 80 degrees finally making a return as early as Friday afternoon.
This is pretty significant because not only is it our first 80-degree day since we flipped into 2025, but it is also the LATEST return of these warmer temps for Central Florida. Never has it taken this long to get back to what feels like the norm for us native Floridians every past winter.
The stretch of upper 70- and low 80-degree weather will be sticking around it seems for the foreseeable future. Our jet stream pattern has calmed down a lot since we saw the enormous punch of arctic air submerge a majority of the eastern U.S.
We’re currently beneath what is called “zonal” flow. The jet stream naturally tries to flow west to east nonstop around our northern hemisphere. When we see big dips in its forward path, that usually signals the start of a cold push as well as the likely development of another storm system.
Computer models don’t seem to indicate our jet getting aggravated over the next week or two. We can also refer to some handy tools called “teleconnections” to help us predict when it is our next cold outbreak is likely to occur. Teleconnections is essentially a fancy weather way of saying “everything in our atmosphere is connected.” When one thing changes or flips, we can expect a bit of a chain reaction down the pike.
Florida could be beneath warmer and muggier conditions for at least another 10 days before we get a small dose of cooler air. Now don’t fret, we’re not going to see arctic conditions hitting home, nor will we have to worry about snow and ice.
In fact, the bonified winter time could be just about over for us here in Central Florida. All models do indicate we’re going to stick to our more La Niña-esque pattern moving forward into February, which means the jet should stay well to our north, warmer temps will continue to hold steady, and we’ll need to watch how we tend to our gardens and lawns because drought conditions may try to sneak back in over time.
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