ORLANDO, Fla. – Those who have lived in Florida long enough know there are two distinct seasons. The rainy or wet season that makes up the bulk of the summer months and, of course, the dry season.
The dry season begins when cold fronts start pushing down the peninsula drying out our atmosphere and shutting off the almost every day thunderstorm chance, dominating the latter stages of fall through early spring,
The wet season is the complete opposite. Cold fronts from the north take a vacation from the sunshine state and just-about daily sea breeze storms begin. The wet season is also characterized by dew point temperatures remaining at least in the upper 60s and more often than not in the 70s. Think of the soupy, humid air Floridians feel in the middle of summer.
The week ahead will feature some of the highest consecutive daily rain chances we have seen so far this year, but are we officially in the wet season?
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We are certainly headed in that direction, but we may not be there yet. I mentioned that the humidity more often than not stays sky high once we enter the wet season. That is a byproduct of cold fronts keeping the drier, less humid air bottled up to our north through the heart of summer.
It appears by the end of next week that humidity levels could drop slightly and rain chances could fall significantly. From a forecast standpoint it looks like we are still in transition between the wet and dry seasons rather than the wet season officially arriving.
With that said, it is hard to define the actual start date. There can be wet periods, like the one that is coming next week, but then the daily storm chances could shut off for a brief period before ramping back up again later in June.
We’ll know for sure if this wet pattern for the week ahead is the start of the wet season some time in June or July depending, of course, on the weather.
The average start date to the wet season in Orlando is May 24. In Daytona Beach, it is May 27.
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