Florida’s weekend weather will make us feel like we’re on a ride. How cold will it get?
The Miami-Dade Youth Fair opens on March 17, but before that annual attraction arrives Florida’s weather may tease the sensation of a ride on the Mega Drop.
Think of a high peak and then a sudden dip. You’ll feel the extremes.
Highs will remain in the lower 80s through the week, with lows in the mid 70s. That sounds about right for March in Miami.
Then Saturday happens.
A near record high is expected as temperatures reach 86 degrees in South Florida, according to the National Weather Service in Miami. The record high for that March date is 87 degrees, according to CBS4 meteorologist Dave Warren.
Just when you think this week-long warming trend has summer in the city early this year, Saturday evening pulls a fast one and plummets the temperatures to about 58 degrees — a drop of nearly 30 degrees.
Bomb cyclone
Blame it on a “bomb cyclone,” also known as a meteorological bomb. That’s a weather term for when a storm’s barometric pressure readings drop in excess of 24 millibars in 24 hours, according to the National Weather Service. The storm can be a severe thunderstorm, blizzard, heavy downpour or other associated weather pattern, according to The Conversation and reported by Scientific American.
Such a storm system is forecast to head to Florida from Friday night to Saturday night as it tracks northeast through the Eastern United States, CBS4 reports.
Wind chills
Wind chill values — what it really feels like when exposed skin simultaneously meets cool temperatures and brisk winds — could feel like the upper 30s on the weekend over the Lake Okeechobee region and inland South Florida, weather service meteorologist Paxton Fell wrote in her hazardous weather outlook on Wednesday morning. Wind chill temperatures in the 40s will be possible across the Gulf Coast and interior portions of South Florida, she added.
Highs on Sunday afternoon should only reach about 71 degrees — 10 degrees cooler than the days leading up to Saturday night and Sunday morning’s big drop.
But then, like the fair’s Mega Drop ride, we get another ride to the top pretty fast.
“The wind quickly shifts to the northeast and eventually the east by Sunday night and Monday, warming temperatures up quickly. Highs will be back to near 80 degrees Monday afternoon,” CBS4’s Warren reports.
The Florida Keys will feel the cold front, too, but will be warmer, with an expected low in the mid-60s, according to the weather service in Key West. But if you plan to boat, expect small craft advisories, as winds up to 25 knots and higher gusts are possible.
Other weather conditions
Showers and thunderstorms could begin Wednesday afternoon and dot the area each day into Saturday.
“A rumble of thunder or two cannot be ruled out along with lightning strikes,” Fell said in Wednesday’s forecast.
But the highest chance for inclement weather is Saturday afternoon’s 50% chance, the weather service predicts.
Shifting winds ahead of the cold front from the south and southwest should sweep in afternoon showers and storms inland and then east across Miami-Dade and Broward, Warren forecast.
Watch for an elevated risk of rip currents through late week and into the weekend along the Atlantic Coast, the weather service warned. High surf is also possible along Palm Beach and Gulf coasts on the weekend making for hazardous marine conditions as the cold front passes over us.
“Winds this weekend may approach wind advisory thresholds,” Fell forecast. Wind advisories usually are announced when there are sustained winds of 31 to 39 mph, for an hour or more and wind gusts of 46 to 57 mph for any duration, according to the National Weather Service.
Tampa Bay forecast
Bradenton and surrounding Tampa Bay follows a similar schedule of warm and then cold by Saturday — but even colder and with a much stronger storm chance on Saturday of 90%, according to meteorologist Austen Flannery of the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay.
These thunderstorms could lash Tampa Bay with strong gusty winds, heavy rains and “frequent deadly lightning strikes,” Flannery forecast in the service’s hazardous weather outlook for the week.
Saturday’s low will be about 41 degrees, with north winds of 17 to 21 mph and gusts as high as 29 mph.
Orlando
Expect lows of 39 degrees Saturday night and a high of just 63 on Sunday, the weather service in Orlando forecasts. High rain and storm chance Thursday through Saturday, riding a range of 70% to 80%.
“An unseasonably warm, unstable environment will lead to numerous showers and scattered strong lightning storms Thursday and Friday,” explained Orlando meteorologists Rob Haley and Derrick Weitlich. Some of these storms could be locally severe across North Central Florida, including the Space Coast to Metro Orlando and the I-4 corridor, the weather experts said.
This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 10:41 AM.
