Florida’s colder winter continues this week

Predictions of a warmer, drier winter for Florida aren’t exactly panning out, and another round of chilly air is sweeping south this week.

Parts of the Panhandle around Tallahassee could even see snow flurries again, though the chances for accumulating snow are low this time, according to the National Weather Service.

On Jan. 3, Tallahassee residents experienced the first measurable snowfall since December 1989. Mark Wool, a meteorologist for the Weather Service, says a lot of factors influenced the unusual event.

“The surface has to be cold enough for snow to accumulate,” Wool said. “This year, we’ve had the rare combination of a low-pressure system that has produced precipitation, providing fuel for snow. Because it has been so cold for awhile already, with temperatures below freezing for the whole night, snow was able to stick right away.”

Although temperatures were forecast to drop with a blast of cool air Tuesday night, they were not expected to be cold enough for snow in Tallahassee this time around. Light snow is possible in the western portion of the Panhandle.

The coldest air this week in South Florida will be Thursday morning with temperatures in the upper 40s in parts Palm Beach County and near 50 in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

In South Florida, Florida has had its share of cold days this January despite this year’s La Niña weather pattern. A La Niña winter generally means wet, snowy winters for the northern states and a warm, dry season in the south. But this year, strong wind currents and a southerly dip in the jet stream has allowed cold air to seep into the Sunshine State.

“It is unusual that our office is dealing with another weather impact in less than two weeks since the last one,” says Wool. “We’re going to have a colder than normal month for January, and that’s only happened a few times in the last five years.”

In October, the Weather Service had predicted a warmer and drier winter this season, which would’ve marked South Florida’s sixth warm winter in a row.

If La Niña materialized as predicted, the jet stream would have shifted north. But this year, the jet stream sank southeast, bringing a milder winter for big parts of the western United States with record low snow levels.

Temperatures will start to warm up by the weekend with highs in the mid-70s after Thursday’s cool down.