Welcome to spring. Meteorological winter ended Thursday, and the National Weather Service took a look back at how things went.
As they predicted back in October, this winter was cooler, cloudier and wetter than those in the recent past.
But arctic blasts never reached us.
The trend was basically due to the El Niño effect, where a hot Pacific Ocean causes the subtropical branch of the jet stream to shift south, over the northern Gulf of Mexico, and flow moisture, clouds and storms toward Florida and the southeastern U.S.
The result was increased cloudiness, storms and cold fronts in South Florida this winter.
The weather service also said that the shift south, and the activity level of the subtropical jet stream acted as a buffer of sorts to polar blasts.
It weakened the polar jet stream weaker and kept it farther north. “This prevented air masses of arctic origin from penetrating too far south across the United States,” the report said, “therefore we ended up with fewer cool/cold days along with fewer warm days.”
In other words, it was a cool winter, but not one of extremes.
The report said that all that cloudiness evened things out. The average daily maximum temperatures were slightly below normal due to all that cloudiness blocking the sun, and the average minimum temperature was slightly above normal, as clouds tend to keep temperatures milder at night.
Arctic blasts just couldn’t reach South Florida this year. The coldest temperatures of the winter just were not that cold compared to historical data. Fort Lauderdale dropped to 51 degrees F, West Palm Beach reached 47 F, Miami 52 F and Naples 45 F. Those were the warmest seasonal minimum since 1949-1950.
Though we had the coldest winter average temperature since 2014-2015, temperatures were essentially equal with the average 30-year norm across South Florida. It’s just that our region has had a spate of hot winters lately. Last winter was particularly hot, with an average temperature nearly four degrees warmer than this winter.
As for the months ahead, forecasters predict that El Niño will wane, but it ain’t over yet, and March through May could be wet and stormy because of it.