Cold front expected to drop temperatures at night into 50s, 60s

A punch of cold air will whip through South Florida next week, dropping temperatures to lows not seen since spring.

National Weather Service forecasters in Miami are predicting overnight Wednesday to dip into the 60s at the coast and plunge into the 50s in western Palm Beach County, while Thursday’s daytime high might struggle to reach 80 degrees.

With the first seasonal offering of cooler, drier air several days out, the timing still is tenuous, but the official forecast at Palm Beach International Airport on Thursday tops out at 79 degrees. The last time the high temperature was below 80 in West Palm Beach was May 6.

It hasn’t dipped below 70 degrees at the airport since May 11, when the mercury fell to 69 for one final cool down before summer.

“It’s not going to be an arctic blast by any stretch of the imagination,” said Chris Fisher, a meteorologist with the NWS in Miami. “But we will be a little below nor-

mal and it seems like people are fairly excited.”

The period of July through September was the secondwarmest on record for southeast Florida, with the average temperature of 83.5 degrees running 2.4 degrees above normal, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.

October’s average temperature at PBIA has run about 2.4 degrees above normal.

The jolt of cold is courtesy of a revved-up jet stream that will dive deep into the southern U.S. with a low-pressure system expected to sweep toward the northeast. The trailing cold front will drop temperatures from Maine to the Keys, ending a spate of sunny, mild days in the north.

“This stretch of nice weather may have people wondering when the pattern will change and it will turn colder,” said AccuWeather chief meteorologist Elliot Abrams about unusually warm temperatures from the Mid-Atlantic to New England. “The change will arrive next week.”

It won’t be the first cold front this season to reach Florida. Earlier this week, a front moved through, dropping temperatures in the Panhandle through Orlando, but washing out over South Florida with showers and clouds.

Rain will be spotty through the weekend, with chances ranging from 60 percent Saturday night to 30 percent Sunday. An east wind means a high risk of rip currents is expected through Saturday night , and a small-craft advisory is in effect through Sunday morning.

Rain also will herald next week’s cold front with a 50 percent chance of showers Tuesday, dipping to 30 percent Wednesday, before mostly sunny skies prevail Thursday and Friday.

Fisher said it’s not unusual for South Florida to have to wait until late October for its first cold front, which usually coincides with the onset of the dry season.

Dew-point temperatures, which are a measure of the amount of water vapor in the air, are expected to plummet into the 40s and 50s behind the front.

But it takes extended days of lower dew points and lower precipitation to formally mark an end to the rainy season.

“We’ll be looking at that over the next week,” Fisher said. “The drier weather needs to stick around, and if that persists, we’ll probably make the call the dry season has started.”